A New Angel, a New Fate
by Marcus S. Lazarus
Summary: On the run from his people, the Doctor's curiosity is aroused when he discovers a fleet of humans in deep space in the distant past
1. In the Temple

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AN: For those who've read my 'Doctor at War' series- looking at the War Doctor taking action to alter various events in other major conflicts during the chaos of the Time War- this story is a sequel/prequel to the story 'The Counter-Virus'; 'Counter-Virus' featured the War Doctor acting to disable the majority of the Cylon fleet during the Fall of the Twelve Colonies, but this story will look at the subsequent events in _Galactia_ after the arrival of the _Eighth_ Doctor

AN 2: For the Colonials, this starts during the events of 'The Eye of Jupiter', just after the discovery of the Temple of Five. For the Doctor, this is set between the Eighth Doctor novels 'The Space Age' and 'The Banquo Legacy', at a time when the TARDIS had been destroyed and he was travelling in his companion Compassion, who had been unintentionally 'evolved' into a Type-102 TARDIS (To give you a better perspective, the Doctor's ship is just a Type-40); after her 'evolution' Compassion was being sought by the Time Lords to use her as 'breeding stock' for a new generation of TARDISes, the Doctor going on the run as he refused to allow his companion to become a slave. Their other companion at this time is Fitz Kriener, a sixties slacker/amateur singer who joined the Doctor after his mother and everyone else at her nursing home developed psychic powers due to alien interference and had to be killed after they went insane, with Fitz deciding to leave with the Doctor rather than face murder charges

A New Angel, a New Fate

"Another cave?" Fitz asked, looking at the Doctor in surprise as his friend studied the console with a smile. "I thought you said we were travelling at random now?"

"We are," the Doctor smiled, patting the Randomiser with a grin before taking one last glance at the read-outs on the console. "It just seems that we've lucked out with our coordinates so far; the cave on Eskon, the asteroid we were at last time, and now this new cave."

"And it's far more interesting than the last underground location we visited," Compassion's voice interjected, sounding actually intrigued for once. "You should come out and take a look."

"On our way," the Doctor grinned, as Compassion's door appeared in its usual place, leaving him and Fitz to walk out and take in their surroundings.

Even Fitz couldn't fail to be impressed at the scale of what awaited them outside their travelling companion. They were standing in a vast stone chamber with a large central column, extending up to about half the height of the overall room. There were some kind of strange crystals on the top of the column just underneath what looked like a similar set of crystals hanging from the ceiling, along with five smaller pentagonal columns around the central structure. The walls were covered in some kind of hieroglyph that Fitz couldn't even remotely recognise, along with the occasional repeated image of a series of orange, yellow and blue circles inside each other in some sort of pattern.

"Fascinating," the Doctor said, smiling in approval before he turned back to Compassion. "You were right, Compassion; this _is_ interesting."

"Any idea what it's for?" Fitz asked, as he took in the surrounding area once again before asking his next question. "And why's it so light in here?"

"I believe the light's coming from those crystals, actually," the Doctor said, indicating the crystals scattered around the upper level of the temple before he turned to study the walls. "As for your first question, I can't be sure what we're looking at here. Really, it's the writing that's the puzzle; it has some similarities to Ancient Greek, but there's something about it that doesn't quite fit that image…"

"Aside from the fact that we're several centuries in the past even for the Greeks?" Compassion interjected.

"And probably quite a few planets away from there as well?" Fitz asked.

"Yes to both," the Doctor confirmed, his expression curious as he stared at the nearest wall. "Still, where it matters, that's the advantage of this Randomiser compared to the last one; if even I don't recognise the area, nobody will think to look for me here…"

"In what way?" Compassion asked.

"Well," the Doctor explained, turning back to his companions with a smile, "the problem with the Randomiser is that it's not _completely_ random. I mean, _where_ we go is out of our hands, but since any TARDIS with one installed is still bound by the automatic safety protocols not to materialise in a potentially hostile environment, there are still a certain number of likely options that the Time Lords could consider looking for us on. On some level, Compassion has a degree of access to my old ship's flight records to help her automatically calculate a course, but our main advantage is… well, to put it in terms you can understand, she hadn't developed a 'Favourites' list before I installed it."

"Pardon?" Fitz asked.

"When I installed a Randomiser in my old ship, my first couple of trips with it took me back to planets I'd visited before, and after that I spent some time having to override it to respond to distress signals or track down missing friends," the Doctor explained, briefly wistful at the memory of that particular time of his life before he focused back on the present. "Anyway, since Compassion's starting fairly fresh, our journeys are fundamentally more random because she doesn't have any past 'preferences' to influence the Randomiser's destination."

"In other words, since I haven't really gone anywhere as myself, the Randomiser isn't just falling back into old habits?" Compassion asked, curious despite her usual indifference.

"Precisely," the Doctor smiled. "I mean, you may have some degree of access to my past journeys, but that's a minor detail in the grand scheme of things…"

The sound of footsteps suddenly reached the three, prompting them to turn around towards a small door in one part of the room.

"Ah, good; company," the Doctor smiled, turning to look at the door. "Maybe we'll find out where this is."

No sooner had the Doctor spoken than a small group of men walked in, wearing dark trousers and tight grey shirts under what Fitz could only think of as black vests, many of them looking dirty and sweaty and some of them carrying guns.

"Hello," the Doctor said, walking up to the new arrivals with a broad smile and an outstretched hand. "I'm the Doctor, and-?"

" _On your knees_!" one of the men said, brandishing what looked to Fitz like some kind of Earth gun as some of his colleagues pulled out similar weapons, all aimed at the three travellers in a manner that made it clear everyone present knew how to use them. " _NOW_!"

"Oh dear," the Doctor said, even as he obeyed the order and quickly got to his knees, a warning glance back at Fitz and Compassion all they needed to follow their friend's example. "It's going to be one of _those_ first contacts…"

"Shut up!" another man said, as the three travellers found themselves surrounded, two men aiming guns at their heads as a third forced them to their feet.

"I don't know _how_ you got here," a third man said, looking at the three with a kind of hostile uncertainty as though he wasn't sure if he should shoot them immediately or not, "but you're _not_ going to share this with the rest of your toaster friends."

"Toasters?" Fitz repeated in confusion. "Why would we want to talk to toasters?"

"What?" the man said, looking at Fitz in confusion before he starting chuckling sarcastically. "Oh, that's rich; you introduce new models for the first time since New Caprica, and you think we'll just be so excited to see new faces that we won't ask any questions? Do you really think we're _that_ stupid?"

"No, we just genuinely don't know what you're talking about," Compassion said, looking bluntly at the man, only to fall silent as the man pointed a gun at her.

"Look," the Doctor said, looking anxiously at the assembled men, "maybe we could talk about this somewhere more comfortable? I don't know where we are, but considering your equipment, I presume you have a ship of some sort somewhere?"

The man stared thoughtfully at the Doctor for a moment, until he nodded and looked at one of the other men.

"Hotdog," he said firmly, "you're due to finish your shift soon; take these three up to _Galactica_ and get Doc Cottle to run a full check-up."

"Sir," the other man said, nodding in confirmation before he turned to indicate a couple of other men. "You're with me; take these three back to the Raptor."

"From which we'll be taken to your main ship?" the Doctor asked, smiling as he got back to his feet. "Excellent; always good to meet people in authority."

Fitz could never be sure how the Doctor managed to be so casual whenever they were arrested; did his friend ever get worried about anything?


	2. Colonial First Contact

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A New Angel, a New Fate

This whole situation might be completely outside his experience, but the Doctor had to admit that he was rather enthusiastic about that; after so long worrying about keeping Compassion safe and dealing with immediate threats that he had to sort on short notice before anyone else took action, it was refreshing to be faced with a few intriguing questions that wouldn't mean life or death if he didn't answer them immediately.

While he had no real idea what humans were doing this far out in space this far back in the past, he had to admit that the whole situation was rather intriguing. From what he'd seen of their 'Battlestar' as he and his companions were taken up from the planet, their ship was fairly basic compared to some of the technology he had encountered in his past lives, but the sheer scale of it was still impressive despite its battered physical condition. The assembled ships around the Battlestar raised some interesting questions about what was going on here- none of this group struck him as a 'qualified' exploration fleet by any definition- but he had to focus on the main issue right now, which lay in working out where they were and what he could do to keep Fitz safe (Compassion's safety went without saying).

As the small ship they were travelling in landed in one of the 'docking bays' protruding from the side of the main ship, it was lowered into another part of the ship, the three marines waiting for a moment until something beeped and the ship's doors opened. The Doctor only had a moment to speculate that this ship didn't have forcefield technology and must rely on simple hatches to keep pressure contained before he and his companions were forced out of the ship and led towards the medical bay. Fitz looked anxiously around himself as they walked through the ship, but Compassion continued to look around with her usual nonchalance as the Doctor simply kept silent track of the route they were following into the ship. He might only need to enter Compassion to retreat, but old habits died hard, and he'd prefer not to simply dematerialise and run off until he was more aware of the situation and if there was anything he could do to help.

Once he reached the medical bay, he was pleased to find three people waiting for him with a manner that suggested some degree of authority. The old man with white hair in a white coat was probably the local doctor, but the one-eyed bald man had a definite commanding presence, and something about the other man with thick greying hair and a weathered face reminded him of Alistair before he was rejuvenated at Cheldon Bonniface.

"Ah, hello," he said, smiling politely at the three men as Compassion and Fitz were marched in to stand alongside him. "I'm the Doctor, and these are Fitz and Compassion; who are you?"

"'Who are you'?" the one-eyed man said, looking at the Doctor incredulously. "You actually think we'd buy that?"

"Buy what?" Fitz asked, looking at the speaker in confusion. "Who do you think we-?"

"Cut the ignorant act, you fracking toaster!" the man said, walking towards Fitz with a firm glare before the other man in blue placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Colonel," the other man said, his tone firm as he looked at his colleague. "I appreciate your concern, but I think if this was a bluff, the Cylons would try something less obvious if they wanted to trick us?"

After a moment's silence, the one-eyed man sighed grimly as he stepped back.

"Good point…" he said, his tone exasperated as he looked at the three travellers. "Still doesn't explain _what_ they're doing here, though…"

"Oh, we're just travellers passing through," the Doctor explained, smiling politely at the three men. "As I said, I'm the Doctor, and these are my friends, Fitz and Compassion."

"Travellers," the man said (Based on his solemn manner, the Doctor had tentatively identified him as the leader among these three). "From where?"

"Well…" the Doctor said, looking uncertainly between his friends and the three men before he came to a decision. "That's… actually a fairly long story; it might be more appropriate if you… ran a couple of checks to support what I'm going to tell you?"

"A couple of checks?" the old doctor repeated.

"I assume that you have some kind of medical scanner or something that can give you some idea of our internal anatomy?" the Doctor explained, shrugging casually as he turned to look at the doctor. "Please, feel free to run whatever tests you like- beyond cutting us open, obviously- and then I will be happy to answer any questions you have."

It was a risky offer to make, but right now, when he didn't know what he and his companions were being accused of and what kind of situation they'd dropped into, he felt that it was the best way to make his point right now.

* * *

Sitting in the main waiting area of the infirmary, Admiral William Adama wondered what it said about him if he was actually considering the idea in his mind.

He had no idea who this 'Doctor' or the other two people with him were or where they had come from, but something about him just…

Despite the questions raised by his presence, something about the Doctor made Adama _want_ to trust him.

It was a strange thing to think, but he just couldn't see the Doctor as some kind of Cylon plant. Lieutenant Agathon might have confirmed that there were still five Cylon models even the seven known models didn't know about for some reason, but as he'd already noted, the Cylons weren't stupid enough to try and plant three new models in the fleet in such an obvious manner. They'd only just discovered the Temple of Five, there was nothing to suggest that the Cylons were here already, and the admiral personally wasn't even sure that the Temple would be that useful to them to begin with; why would the Cylons do something this stupid to try and 'distract' them from analysing it?

"What are you thinking?"

Looking up, Adama smiled slightly as he saw Tigh staring at him, his old friend's expression as intense as ever despite his missing eye.

"How little sense this all makes," Adama answered, his tone solemn as he stood up. "We find the Temple of Five, and then we find three strangers this far from the Colonies after this long? Even if some other ship from home managed to find this planet by chance, there's no frakking way a three-man crew could have made it this far…"

"Don't know about how they got here, but I can answer one thing right now," Cottle said, walking into the waiting room with an expression on his face that actually seemed to be the closest thing Adama had ever seen to shock on his doctor's face. "They're not human."

"So they _are_ Cylon?" Tigh asked.

"Not unless they really screwed up the production line somewhere," Cottle said grimly. "Like that 'Doctor' fellow suggested, I put all three of them through an MRI scan after making sure they didn't have anything in them that might have been 'tripped' by the magnets in the equipment. That Fitz fellow seems straightforward enough, but the scan can't seem to pick up anything about the woman's insides no matter how I configure it, and as for the man…"

Shaking his head, the doctor reached into his coat and pulled out a rolled-up 'print-out' from the machine before handing it over to the admiral. "Well, look at this."

Unrolling the offered image, it didn't take the admiral long to see what had caused the other man's confusion.

" _Two_ hearts?" Tigh said incredulously, studying the image over Adama's shoulder. "This frakker's got _two hearts_?"

"And that's just the most obvious difference," Cottle said. "There's some kind of extra lobe in his brain, an extra couple of ribs in his ribcage, what should be his lungs are just weird when I look at them more closely, there's something off about his nervous system that I just can't explain, and I think there's even an extra liver in there somewhere…"

"So… what is he?" Adama asked, the possibility swimming through his mind even if he didn't want to be the one to say it first.

"Either he's some kind of weird super-Cylon, which I don't buy because there's no obvious sign of what these additions can do and they'd try and introduce something like this more cautiously if it was part of some plan…" Cottle began grimly.

"Or what?" Tigh asked, when Cottle didn't elaborate further on his own. "He's a frakking _alien_?"

The silence from Cottle said it all about his thoughts on that idea.

"You're frakking kidding me," Tigh groaned. "We had to go through the end of the worlds to make first contact with some nut who dresses like he's in some old novel? What kind of alien looks that human, and what's with those other two anyway?"

"That," Adama said as he stood up, "is one of the many things I'm going to ask him."

He didn't know what was going on, but if this man was an… alien… of some sort, he wanted to know what the man was doing in the Temple of Five…


	3. The Time Lord and the Admiral

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Feedback: Feel free

A New Angel, a New Fate

As he sat in the room that was clearly an interrogation room no matter what they attempted to label it as, the Doctor had to admit that this was actually one of his more comfortable periods of captivity. Once the initial wave of questions and accusations had been dealt with, he and his companions had been treated fairly well apart from being marched fairly promptly through this ship, and the requested scan had been simple enough.

True, he wouldn't have minded being offered something to eat, but he hadn't been kept here long enough for even a human to get particularly hungry, so he wasn't going to complain just yet…

His musings were interrupted when the door opened and the older, dark-haired man he'd met earlier walked in, an expression on his face that put the Doctor in mind of those other cases where he'd turned someone's world on its head.

"Ah, hello," he said, smiling politely at the older man as he sat down opposite him. "Since you're here alone, I take it your doctor told you about the results of those scans I suggested?"

"He did," the other man said, nodding grimy at the Time Lord. "Two hears, two livers, a third lobe to the brain, a nervous system he admits that he can't even begin to understand…"

The physically older man stared silently at the Doctor for a moment before he asked his first real question. "Who are you?"

"Like I told you, I'm the Doctor," the Time Lord smiled politely at the admiral. "I'm a… traveller, of no fixed abode; my companions and I were just… passing by and stopped in to take a look at that fascinating temple before your men arrived and brought us here."

"A traveller," the other man repeated, looking sceptically at the Doctor. "If you aren't… human… why do you look like us?"

"You'd actually be surprised how many species follow a similar evolutionary line," the Doctor smiled politely. "There are many theories about the reasons for that, of course, but this isn't the time or place for that…"

"And… your companions?" the old man asked. "Where did they come from?"

"Well, Compassion came from a distant colony and decided to come with me after she realised that she didn't fit in with her people any more, and I ran into Fitz on Earth-"

" _Earth_?" the older man repeated, suddenly looking at the Doctor with a new intensity behind his gaze. "You've been to _Earth_?"

"Oh yes; it's actually my favourite planet…" the Doctor began, before he registered the full implications of the other man's reaction. "I… take it Earth's important to you?"

"We've… been looking for it for a while," the old man said, still looking intently at the Doctor even as he seemed to regain control of himself. "Can you… take us there? Or at least tell us where it is?"

"Unfortunately, I… can't help you with that," the Doctor said, quickly discarding the possibilities of either lying or giving the man before him the complete truth in favour of a partial truth. "Shortly before I arrived here, my ship's flight records were… well, 'lost' is the best way of putting it; I'm not even sure where I am _now_ , never mind where I am in relation to Earth."

"I… see," the old man said, looking at him for a moment before he spoke again. "And… where is your ship?"

"That's… a very long and complicated story," the Doctor replied, before he looked more curiously at the admiral. "Before I tell you that, maybe you could answer a few of my questions about what this fleet's doing here?"

"What you've seen while coming up to this battlestar are the last survivors of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol," the admiral said grimly.

"The _last_ survivors?" the Doctor repeated incredulously. "This _entire_ fleet represents the survivors of _twelve planets_? What happened?"

"The Cylons," the old man continued.

"The Cylons?" the Doctor repeated curiously. "What are they?"

"Originally, they were just machines we created to serve as a work force," the other man explained, leaning forward to address the Time Lord. "We kept using them even after we observed evidence that they were becoming sentient… but eventually, they revolted against us about fifty years ago."

"And they won?"

"Actually, that conflict ended in an armistice about forty years ago," the man continued, shaking his head in grim confusion at that memory before he continued. "We never worked out why they backed off like that, but we accepted the deal anyway. Once we'd rebuilt most of the essentials on the colonies, we established a space station on the armistice line to maintain talks with the Cylons, but no word was ever heard from them for the next four decades… until they returned and nuked all twelve of our worlds and unleashed a computer virus that disabled virtually every active Battlestar before they could fight back."

"You… have my sympathies," the Doctor said, bowing his head in brief acknowledgement of the scale of the loss these people must have suffered, before he looked curiously at his new acquaintance. "How did they do that?"

"As it turned out," the old man explained, "while they'd been in isolation, the Cylons had advanced far further than we'd expected. We don't know how, but during those forty years, they'd advanced to the point where they could… essentially, they had developed their technology to the point where they could replicate human form."

"Replicate?" the Doctor repeated. "You mean… they look human?"

"Not just look human," the man said firmly. "According to every test we ran on some of the human Cylons after we killed them, there's no obvious difference between these skinjobs and real humans, apart from them being a bit stronger and being able to resurrect."

"Resurrect?" the Doctor repeated once again, curious at this news.

"Every time we kill a Cylon, its mind downloads into a copy of its body that they keep somewhere else, mostly on these 'Resurrection Ships' specifically created for that purpose," the old man explained. "There's apparently a limit to how far they can be from a ship before they can't be 'uploaded' or whatever the term is, but it's still pretty significant; a Cylon agent on this ship was shot over a year ago, when we'd had no direct contact with Cylons for a couple of weeks, and she was confirmed to have resurrected a few months later."

"Mmm," the Doctor mused, nodding in acknowledgement of this new information. "And this 'resurrection' is a complete memory download?"

"As far as we know," the old man said grimly. "They even gave their fighters the ability; makes it harder for our pilots to fight the things if they keep coming back knowing what tricks they'll be up against."

"Quite…" the Doctor said, nodding in grim understanding. "Twelve worlds nuked and very little in the way of viable alternatives… I see your problem."

"We tried settling on a planet we found in a nebula a year ago, but only about twenty percent of its surface was habitable and even that part wasn't very good at helping us set up any kind of crop," the old man continued. "The world we're orbiting might be more comfortable, but there's not much in the way of food and that star's fairly unstable; we only came here because our food supplies were contaminated a few weeks ago and some of our scientists had the idea that we could recycle the algae here as an alternative source of protein."

"But you must have a plan of some sort…" the Doctor began, before his eyes widened in understanding. "Earth?"

"Earth," the old man confirmed with the warmest smile the Doctor had seen yet. "The world that was said to have been settled by the Thirteenth Tribe when they left the other twelve centuries ago. We've found a few clues and markers to its location in some of the old texts, but we're mostly taking guesses and hoping we're going the right way; it's why I hoped that you might be able to give us… something more."

"I see," the Doctor said, trying not to show just how apprehensive he was at that idea.

He knew from his brief glance at Compassion's console before he left her that he was fairly far in the past at this point, and he'd witnessed alien interference in Earth's history often enough to know that humanity could ignore anything if they couldn't explain it… but how could the human race forget about a mass exodus across the stars to escape an army of killer robots?

Still, whatever was going on here, there were still some interesting questions that needed to be answered… and since the Time Lords could only track materialisation based on Compassion arriving on a planet's _surface_ …

"Well…" he began, smiling slightly at the other man before his grin faltered. "I'm so sorry, I can't believe I didn't ask this earlier; what's your name?"

"Admiral William Adama," the old man said, shaking the Doctor's offered hand.

"A pleasure to meet you, Admiral Adama," the Doctor smiled back at him. "I am the Doctor, and you may consider me at your service until your Cylon troubles are over."

"At my service?" Adama repeated curiously.

"I may not be sure where Earth _is_ in relation to us, but I do have a few ideas about dealing with unconventional and dangerous situations," the Doctor explained, trying to look reassuringly at the other man. "Let me see what you have for Earth so far, and I'll see what I can do."

"Why would you do that?" Adama asked, looking critically at the Doctor.

"Because," the Doctor said, ignoring his usual humour in favour of a solemn response, "whatever the Cylons may use to justify their attacks on you, humans are very much my favourite species, and I have no interest in seeing you all get wiped out because a few advanced machines can't accept that you don't deserve to be blamed for the actions of a few."

He'd appreciate a chance to talk to a few of the Cylons when he had the time, but in his book, if one side was willing to nuke twelve planets without any reference to a formal declaration of war, at the very least _some_ of them must have wanted their 'enemies' dead very badly, and that kind of desire wasn't something even he could take them out of…


	4. Staying Put

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Feedback: Feel free

A New Angel, a New Fate

"An alien," President Laura Roslin said, staring incredulously as their strange new guests as she sat opposite him in _Galactica_ 's conference room, Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh on either side of her. "You're… an alien?"

"Yes," the man replied with a warm smile.

"And you call yourself… 'the Doctor'?"

"Everyone does," the Doctor said with a shrug. "It's just easier that way; it's actually been so long since I even used my original name that I'm not even sure I can remember it."

"You forgot your own frakking _name_?" Tigh asked incredulously.

"I'm a lot older than I look, Colonel," the Doctor replied with a shrug. "Believe me, it's been a _very_ long time since I've gone by my name…"

"If it helps, I'm pretty much the age I look," the other man said from his position to the Doctor's right, shrugging awkwardly as their female companion simply sat silently and stared around the room. "And Compassion is… well, that's a bit more complicated."

"You don't want to know why," the woman in question said, looking at the three Colonial leaders with a pointed stare that somehow made it clear that her name was meant to be ironic.

"And…" Roslin said, looking at the other man in awkward apprehension, as though she still couldn't believe what she'd heard, "you're… from Earth?"

"Born and raised," the man smiled at her. "Fitz Kreiner; good to meet you all."

Laura Roslin had spent the better part of the last three years wondering what she would do if she ever met anyone from Earth- even when she'd officially lost the presidential election, she'd still harboured the thought that she'd be involved in the final negotiations after everything she'd done for the first few months of the journey- but she'd never expected that her first contact with Earth would be with someone so…

She wasn't sure what the right term was here; 'normal' or 'casual' didn't quite cover it, but his manner was still far from what she'd been expecting.

"Yeah, yeah, great to meet you too," Colonel Tigh nodded briefly before he turned to glare at the Doctor. "And you say you can't just _take_ us to Earth despite having been there before because…?"

"As I already explained to the admiral here, I don't have any precise astronavigation charts that would help me work out where Earth is in relation to our current position, and my ship… well, it's been through a lot lately; it couldn't get us there no matter how much I wanted to go," the Doctor explained, shrugging awkwardly before he looked directly at Roslin. "Believe me, Madame President, if I could take or direct you to Earth, I would, but it's just not possible with what I have on hand."

"I… understand," Roslin said, surprised at her easy acceptance of the other man's story.

He might not be human, but there was something in the Doctor's manner that made him more human than most of the Cylons she'd witnessed on New Caprica, no matter how hard they might have tried to act human. No matter the mystery of his origins or his reasons for being here, somehow, Roslin _knew_ that he would help them if he could…

"Uh… Madam President?" a voice said from the door, the six residents of the room looking around to see Lieutenant Gaeta standing uncertainly at the door; everyone on _Galactica_ knew about the three new arrivals, but so far information about their identities was being kept fairly contained. "We're getting a message up from the planet about the temple; the chief's pretty sure it's… what you thought it was."

"I see," Laura said, nodding in understanding before she stood up, looking at the Doctor for a moment before she spoke again. "I don't suppose you know anything about the Temple we found you in that you'd care to share with us?"

"We literally arrived there a few moments before your men marched us up here at gunpoint; how are we meant to know a _thing_ about it?" Compassion asked.

"I saw no harm in making sure," Roslin said grimly before she sighed and fixed her gaze on the Doctor. "In any case, I need to see what can be done in that area, so for the moment, I have a simple question for you; do you now or have any intention of ever working with the Cylons?"

"After everything I've heard about them, no," the Doctor replied, his expression shifting to grim as he looked at Roslin. "I appreciate that you have no reason to believe this, Madame President, but be assured of this; when a civilisation decides to nuke twelve planets and billions of people without even a formal declaration of war, I am not inclined to _help_ them do anything."

As she looked at the strange man with two hearts, Roslin was suddenly struck by a feeling that, if this man had felt differently, he might just be a greater danger to the Fleet than the Cylons were.

"Thank you," she said, nodding politely at the Doctor as she stood up. "I have business to attend to at the moment, but once we've completed our survey of the planet, I would be… grateful to talk to you again."

"And I'd be happy to offer what I can," the Doctor replied with a casual smile.

As Roslin walked out of the conference room, Adama looked at the three strange guests for a moment before he came to a decision.

"I'll leave a guard outside the door if you want to wait in here or go anywhere else," the admiral said as he looked between the three new arrivals. "As President Roslin said, we don't have the time to discuss your situation in depth at the moment, but for the moment… you'll have limited access to the more secure areas, of course-"

"I understand completely, Admiral Adama," the Doctor smiled warmly at the older man. "I appreciate your show of faith, and assure you that my companions and I will do nothing to break it."

"You'd better not," Colonel Tigh said, his eye narrowing as he looked at the mysterious man before he sighed and stood up. "Well, better be getting back to business…"

* * *

As soon as the three Colonials had left the room, Fitz and Compassion turned to look at the Doctor.

"So… what now?" Fitz asked. "Get in and leave?"

"No," the Doctor said firmly.

"Excuse me?" Compassion said, looking suspiciously at the Time Lord. "In case you haven't noticed, this isn't the kind of situation where you can just show up and change things; these people are the last survivals of a major war-"

"And they're now on the run from their enemies while remaining in _space_ ," the Doctor finished, smiling at his companions. "Don't you remember what I told you about _how_ the Time Lords track us?"

"By randomly scanning the surface of a planet for when we materialise- _oh_ ," Fitz said, eyes widening in understanding as he took in their surroundings. "But we're not _on_ a planet right now…"

" _Exactly_ ," the Doctor smiled. "If these ships have managed to leave their home systems and reach at least this world since their destruction, they have to have some form of faster-than-light travel, and _that_ means that once they're ready to move on, we can accompany them into deep space."

"And… the Time Lords won't find us there?" Fitz asked.

"Not for a while, anyway," the Doctor smiled. "After all, we'd be in deep space, in the distant past, at a point in history that relatively little is known about because so few species were active at this time; after all, you've never _known_ about the Venusians, have you?"

"Venusians- Venus was _inhabited_?" Fitz said incredulously.

"Around three million years before your time, but yes it was," the Doctor smiled at Fitz before he looked back at Compassion. "The point is that, if we go with these people, you won't be accumulating artron energy with each dematerialisation, _and_ we'll be moving a significant distance from our original starting-point."

He smiled between the other two for a moment before his gaze focused on Fitz. "That said, if these people want to go to Earth, you should probably avoid sharing too much about the planet at the moment; I get the impression that they have a lot to deal with as it is without us adding the complication of time travel to their world-view."

"Ah," Fitz said, nodding in awkward understanding. "We're… fairly far back, then?"

"So far back nobody I know knew about these people," the Doctor said firmly, staring solemnly around the room. "Which raises a few questions about what will happen to them…"

Fitz briefly thought about asking what the Doctor meant by that, but he soon decided that he didn't want to know the answer.

He knew that the Doctor's priority would always be to protect innocent people, but he also knew that his friend placed a great importance on protecting the course of history, particularly with the Faction such a major threat.

If it came to a situation where he _knew_ that these people had to die or their survival would change history…

What would the Doctor do?


	5. First Sighting

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

A New Angel, a New Fate

"Have you managed to take any surveys of the location so far?" Roslin asked as she sat at _Galactica_ 's radio talking with Chief Tyrol; this discovery might be almost as significant as the revelation that they'd made contact with alien life, but after her earlier visions, it was at least something she could almost expect.

She was already debating how much of recent events she should share with the rest of the Fleet. While confirmation that Earth existed was good, considering that Mr Kreiner was far from any kind of diplomat and his alien pilot couldn't give them a precise direction, it didn't seem like giving that knowledge away to the rest of the fleet would accomplish anything more than make the Doctor and his friends the focus of too much public scrutiny…

"… _temple's at least four thousand years old_ ," Chief Tyrol's voice said over the radio, his words drawing Roslin back to the matter she had to deal with right now, " _which_ _lines up with the exodus of the Thirteenth Tribe_."

"Do you really think you've found the Temple of Five?" Roslin asked

" _Yeah_ ," Tyrol replied. " _I recognize it from the books in my father's study, Madame President. He was a priest, and the Temple of Five was an important part of our faith- well, his faith anyways_."

"Could this place be related to the Eye of Jupiter, chief?" Roslin asked, after exchanging brief glances with Adama.

" _You got me, Madame President_ ," the chief replied. " _All I know is the stuff I kinda remember from sneaking into my dad's study when he wasn't looking_."

"The Eye of Jupiter?" Adama put in from in front of her. "What exactly are we talking about?"

" _According to the Scriptures, it's a marker that was left behind by the Thirteenth Tribe_ ," Roslin explained.

" _It's supposed to point the way to Earth_."

" _Nothing down here that could be it yet_ ," Tyrol said from over the radio. " _Could those other three have taken it_?"

"Unlikely," Roslin said; a radio wasn't the best way to tell Tyrol the full details of their unexpected guests, but she felt like she should give him some kind of information. She was about to say more when she was distracted by a sudden alarm blaring through the ship, prompting the admiral to take the radio back from her.

"Chief, we're on alert," Adama said, switching the radio frequency before Tyrol could reply. "This is Adama."

" _Admiral_ ," a familiar voice said at the other end. " _Lieutenant Gaeta, CIC. We have multiple dradis contacts. Four Cylon baseships just jumped into view_."

"On our way," Adama said, exchanging a grim look with Roslin as the Fleet's two leaders headed for the CiC. For a moment, Roslin wondered if their mysterious guests could have anything to do with this, but immediately dismissed that idea as paranoid; as strange as it seemed, she trusted that the Doctor was genuine when he said that he was on their side.

"Sitrep?" Adama asked as the two of them reached the CiC.

"Four baseships inbound at high speed," Colonel Tigh said grimly.

"Four?" Roslin repeated, killing her initial hope that the first number had been incorrect.

"The bastards practically jumped right on top of us," the colonel said, his one eye narrowing as he looked at Adama. "Think those frackers-?"

"Have been under constant observation since they came here; they wouldn't have had the time to send any kind of message," Adama said firmly, before he looked at where Lieutenant Hoshi was currently manning the navigation station. "Fleet status?"

"Spooling up their FTL drives, sir," the former _Pegasus_ lieutenant replied. "Preparing to jump to emergency stand-by coordinates o n your command."

"Do it," Adama said firmly, the younger man nodding in confirmation as he tapped a few switches on his console. As Roslin looked up at the DRADIS screen, the various civilian ships began to vanish, leaving only _Galactica_ and the newly-arrived Basestars after a few moments.

"We've got to hold this position until everyone's back on board," Adama said.

"How many are down there?" Roslin asked.

"Enough," Adama said firmly, even as the president mused that she shouldn't have asked that question; ever since they'd nearly lost Starbuck during her crash-landing early in this journey, she had come to recognise that Adama would never leave a man behind unless he was certain there was no hope of rescue.

"Admiral," she said, reminded of her earlier conversation with Tyrol, "if the Eye of Jupiter is somewhere in that temple, and it really is a marker o n the way to Earth… We can't let the Cylons get their hands o n it."

"Stand by to launch vipers," Adama said urgently.

"Something's odd here," Colonel Tigh noted. "The Cylons aren't launching Raiders. The baseships are standing off outside of weapons range."

"That is odd," Roslin noted; military tactics might not be her strongest point, but even she could see that the points Tigh had raised didn't make any sense.

"Admiral," Hoshi said, looking up from the communications console. "It's the Cylon baseship, requesting to speak with you."

"Put it through the speaker," Adama said, looking uncertainly at Roslin and Tigh before he turned to the phone. "This is Admiral Adama."

" _Admiral_ ," a familiar voice said over the speaker, Roslin only able to stare at Adama as she registered a voice she'd prayed she'd never have to hear again. " _I can't tell you what a genuine pleasure it is to hear your voice. This is Gaius Baltar_."

 _Why is it_ , Roslin wondered as she looked at Adama to note that he at least shared her shock at this revelation, _that the people we_ want _to stay dead never do_?

And she'd been hoping that the revelation that aliens were real would be the most awkward news she'd encounter this week…

* * *

As she waited in _Galactica_ 's conference room, Roslin constantly wondered if she'd made a mistake agreeing to this particular 'conference'. As Adama had noted, the Cylons must want something if they hadn't just started shooting at the battlestar the moment they jumped in, but even if she agreed with the idea of negotiation, she was less assured about the latest addition to their plan.

"Are you certain about this?" she asked, keeping her voice low as the marines gathered to focus their weapons on the main door.

"We discussed-" Adama began.

"Not Baltar," Roslin said, indicating the podium behind them. " _That_. Won't Baltar notice?"

"He didn't spend much time here even when he came here, he's not that observant when he has no reason to pay attention, and we could probably pass that off as repair damage if he wonders about it," Adama said. "It's a risk, but he made a good point; a new observer might see things we'll miss."

The thing that really surprised Roslin was that she and Adama had been so comfortable with this suggestion in the first place. They might have only just met the mysterious Doctor, but even if he couldn't give them any proof of his claims, something about him encouraged confidence…

Her thoughts on her strange decision were cut short as the door opened and Colonel Tigh walked in from the front, followed by Doctor Baltar and the Cylons they'd met under the names of John Cavil and D'Anna Biers; Roslin thought that Sharon Valerii had told them that these were Cylon numbers One and Three, but it wasn't important right now.

"Laura," Baltar said, the man having the nerve to actually cry as he looked between her and Adama, despite the admiral standing in front of him. "Laura… it's so good to see you."

"The weapons are hardly necessary," D'Anna said, as Baltar stepped back into line with the Cylons, evidently recognising that his interest wasn't reciprocated.

"Yes, exactly," Cavil said, his tone teasing as he looked at them. "We come in peace."

"What do you want?" Roslin asked, refusing to rise to the 'old man's' taunt.

"We want the Eye of Jupiter," D'Anna said firmly, her voice low with a hint of hostility. "So let's just skip all the denials and protestations, and go straight to what we know; that you have people o n the ground. And we know that you've found the original settlement of the Thirteenth Tribe."

"It also doesn't take a lot of deduction to conclude that the o nly reason you haven't cut your losses and jumped away by now, is that you probably found the artifact, but you haven't been able to retrieve it yet," Cavil continued, fingers flexed in front of him. "Is that about right, Madame President?"

"We have our people o n the surface, we're not leaving them behind," Roslin said firmly.

"That's a touching, but not very convincing idea," Cavil said dismissively.

"Look the chances that we've all converged o n this small planet at the same time are infinitesimally small, so we all understand it's not chance," Baltar put in. "You want the Eye. The Cylons want the Eye. I would like to discuss the practical issues that come to hand- and there are some- so that we can reach some accommodation."

"The less this man says, the better this will go," Roslin said, resolutely not looking at Baltar; she might dislike the Cylons, but at least shed always known what to expect from them.

"Wait a minute," Baltar said. "If it wasn't for me, the Cylons would have blown you out of the sky two seconds after we'd arrived."

"I think you can handle this alone… if you can stomach it," Roslin said, turning towards the door of the room.

"So I've saved your life, again," Baltar said as she walked towards the door. "How many times is that now? Because I'm beginning to lose count. If it wasn't for me, you'd all be dead!"

Roslin might have to concede that point, but she couldn't think of a single circumstance where Baltar had saved anyone's life when their survival wouldn't have benefitted him; as far as she was concerned, even if he had genuinely talked the Cylons out of firing on _Galactica_ , he probably just did it because he felt pathetically alone among a group of machines.

Still, even if she didn't like him, these negotiations were their best chance to get their people off the planet before the Cylons lashed out, which meant that she should get out before she jeopardised them completely.

She'd wait outside to make sure things didn't escalate, but she wasn't willing to keep talking to that man longer than she had to…

* * *

"What's your offer?" Adama said, taking up the conversation now that the president had left; he might dislike Baltar just as much as she did, but someone had to be reasonably diplomatic during this conversation, and he couldn't trust Tigh to remain objective.

"You give us the Eye of Jupiter, we let you go," D'Anna said.

"And we'll throw in Baltar," Cavil smirked.

"What are you taking about now?" Baltar asked, looking at the older Cylon in shock. "What's he saying-?"

"I'm improvising," Cavil clarified, even if Adama doubted that the elder Cylon was being honest. "Throw in something, sweeten the pot. In fact I'm suspecting that the admiral and Madame President would enjoy some nice, quiet, private time with their former leader. Am I right?"

"Worth thinking about," Tigh said solemnly.

"Definitely worth thinking about," Adama agreed, glancing at Baltar before focusing on the two Cylons. "But we're not giving you the key to finding Earth."

"You try bringing it up from that planet and see what happens," D'Anna said. "We outnumber you four to o ne."

"I'm setting the terms now," Adama countered, walking up to firmly address the former reporter (This might not be the same D'Anna who'd posed as a journalist, but it was easier to assume she had at least similar memories). "Make any attempt to attack this ship or the people o n the planet's surface, I'll launch every nuke I've got. Lay waste to the entire continent."

"You're bluffing," D'Anna countered. "You want to find Earth as much as we do."

"Guards," Adama said, refusing to respond to that comment. "Escort them back to their ship."

Baltar actually looked like he was about to cry as he was led away by the Cylons, but the admiral refused to feel sympathy for him after everything he'd done; the former president might be starting to realise that he wasn't as valuable to the Cylons as he'd probably convinced himself he was, but that didn't change what he'd done in the past.

The fact that the Cavil model winked at him was something that he wasn't going to analyse any further than he had to; he hated the idea that this… _thing_ … might approve of anything he was doing.

As soon as the Cylons were out of the room, followed by the marine guards, Laura Roslin walked back into the conference room from the side entrance- Adama assumed she had wanted to listen in even if she didn't want to confront him directly- while the Doctor stepped out from behind the blue curtains at the back of the podium, looking sympathetically at the three Colonial leaders.

"So," the alien said casually, "those were Cylons?"

"The old man and the woman, anyway," Roslin clarified grimly. "The other man was Doctor Gaius Baltar."

"Ah," the Doctor said, before looking curiously between the other three. "And Doctor Gaius Baltar is?"

"A frakking self-centred asshole with an ego the size of this ship who's also smart enough to justify that attitude," Tigh said grimly.

"He was our greatest surviving scientist after the fall of the Colonies, and I appointed him my vice-president after we re-established the Quorum of Twelve because he seemed the best alternative at the time," Roslin explained. "I began to have some doubts about his abilities as a leader as time went on, but even after he decided to run against me in our last election, I… didn't expect him to automatically surrender and collaborate with the Cylons when we tried to make a life on New Caprica."

"You found an inhabitable planet out here?" the Doctor asked.

"Barely," Adama said grimly. "Most of the surface wasn't really suitable for growing anything, and the bit that was didn't offer much opportunities for planting crops of any sort; the main reason we stayed there was that it was in a nebula that we thought might stop the Cylons finding us."

"And that didn't work?"

"It might have done, up until someone blew up one of our ships and the Cylons tracked it back to source when they were in the right place a year later," Adama explained. "I always thought that it was set off by a nuclear warhead Baltar requested for one of his earlier experiments, but he stonewalled my investigation and I didn't have enough evidence to try and go behind his back."

"Ah, politics; always a headache when the wrong person's in power," the Doctor smiled sympathetically at the admiral before he looked over at Roslin. "Anyway, what is this 'Eye of Jupiter' you were all talking about?"

"Supposedly, it's one of the signs that will point the way to Earth," Roslin said, looking at the Doctor with a sudden sense of uncertainty. "If you've been to Earth…?"

"Unfortunately, I know even less about this Eye than you do," the Doctor said apologetically. "Most likely whoever left your people this route didn't feel the need to keep the instructions themselves; after all, it's not like anything suggests they were planning to come back after leaving you all, does it?"

"Good… point," Roslin said, trying not to show how concerned she was at the sudden thought of whether the Thirteenth Tribe might even _want_ the other colonies finding them…

"That said," the Doctor continued with a contemplative expression, "I can see what you mean about the Cylons being ruthless; they're certainly some of the more diverse individualised androids I've encountered, but that Cavil fellow didn't strike me as someone who talks much…"

"Excuse me?" Roslin asked. "Diverse individualised androids?"

"Oh, I just meant that, from what you've told me, the Cylons were all created as themselves rather than to specifically replace someone?" the Doctor explained. "In my experience, mass-produced androids tend to follow only a very limited pattern, but from what I saw, these Cylons actually seem to be a bit more than just different models of the same person."

"We've picked up enough from our encounters with them to see that each model actually has its own 'speciality'," Adama put in. "Based on the numbers we've learned, as an example, the Twos are particularly religiously inclined while the Fours tend to act as the Cylon doctors; each model has its own specific area of expertise."

"Ah," the Doctor said, his expression faltering before he reassumed his curious smile. "But that's just the core template; do they develop as individuals once they're activated?"

"Well… I saw enough of them on New Caprica to see that there are some differences even among the individual models…" Roslin noted, thinking back on that time as a Cylon 'prisoner'; even if she'd tried to avoid them as much as possible, she couldn't help but notice how even some of the same model of Cylons had used different methods to try and 'connect' with the humans, no matter how flawed those efforts might have been.

"Still similar enough to be frakking pains in the neck," Tigh said grimly.

"Nobody's disputing that, Colonel; I just think it's interesting…" the Doctor said, before looking at Adama. "How different are they from humans?"

"Our autopsies noted a few anomalies around the spinal column and some slight additions to the brain, but nothing that we could pick up on a more casual analysis," Adama replied. "We know that they're vulnerable to certain diseases and types of radiation that humans are immune to, but we haven't found any way to definitively state that someone is human or Cylon, and there are still five models unaccounted for."

"Just five?" the Doctor asked. "Out of how many?"

"Twelve," Roslin added. "We witnessed the other seven during our time on New Caprica, but a Cylon defector has confirmed that the remaining five are for some reason unknown to the rest of the Cylons; they don't even know _why_ this knowledge is hidden, just that it is."

"I see…" the Doctor said, nodding thoughtfully before he clapped his hands together and smiled broadly at the three leaders. "Anyway, getting back to the immediate matter, we need to work out what we're actually looking for down there; do you have anything on the Eye that I could read right now?"


	6. Pondering the Anomalies

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

AN: At this point, I feel I should mention that all scenes set on the planet and/or the Baseship will be the same as they were in canon, as only those who've been directly introduced to the Doctor so far actually know anything about him so his presence hasn't impacted the ground forces beyond some of them briefly wondering who he is. Changes will occur once everyone's back on board _Galactica_ , but right now they have more immediate priorities taking up their attention than wondering about three strangers who didn't have time to do anything before being taken into custody.

A New Angel, a New Fate

"So… these robot guys have seven models in action, but they have a Number _Eight_?" Fitz asked, looking sceptically at the Doctor as the three time-travellers sat in _Galactica_ 's conference room; with nothing they could contribute to the crisis on the algae planet, the Doctor had asked for some time to go over what the Colonials knew about the Cylons so far and discuss the situation with his friends, with Adama assuring them that he'd let them know if the situation changed in any way. "If they're robots, shouldn't they do it in order?"

"A good question, to which I only wish I had as good an answer," the Doctor noted, nodding in acknowledgement of his companion's point. "We can assume that someone did _something_ to the Number Seven model at some point that meant it never got past the production line, but that doesn't help us explain why they did that or even who was responsible."

"Typical," Compassion mused, actually smiling as she looked up at the Doctor. "These people create an entire race of machines, and eventually even the machines start acting up."

"I've encountered a lot of machines that became more irrational than their creators, actually; the problem always seems to lie in letting them advance to a point where what they want to be is beyond what their creators can do for them…" the Doctor mused, before he sighed and shrugged. "Anyway, as fascinating as that is, right now our priority is getting these people off the planet safely and helping them work out how to get to Earth, which means understanding what we're up against."

"No way we can trace Earth by the stars or something?" Fitz asked hopefully.

"At this distance from Earth's solar system and this far in the past, I don't have anything I can really work with to identify our respective positions," the Doctor shook his head apologetically. "In the end, we're just too far out of range, particularly with Compassion's coordinates thrown off by the Randomiser, so we just have to hope that they can find whatever clue is represented by this 'Eye of Jupiter' they were talking about by themselves."

"Are you sure that we can't do anything?" Compassion asked. "I did some research on the technology these people have; their 'jump drives'-"

"Create a displacement in the air when they're used due to the sudden creation of a vacuum that could cause structural damage to the ship," the Doctor interjected. "They might be able to launch without actually leaving the battlestar, but I'm fairly sure that these people don't want us to damage their ship after everything else it's been through."

"Ah," Fitz said, looking uncertainly at the Doctor for a moment as he thought about what he'd just heard before deciding to ask another question. "Are you… OK about this? Being stuck up here while everything's going wrong down there?"

"It's not like we can do anything about it, Fitz," the Doctor said, looking grimly at the sixties singer. "I don't like it, but the best thing we can do right now is work out how these Cylons actually 'work' and see if we can find something that will help the fleet identify those missing five."

"To do what?" Compassion asked. "From what I've seen, I think these people would be more likely to just airlock any other Cylons they found-"

"That was _before_ they accepted one of the Cylons as a member of their fleet," the Doctor corrected, looking firmly at Compassion. "They have a precedent to confirm that not every Cylon out there is only interested in killing them, and even Sharon Agathon has confirmed that the other Cylons don't know much about these 'Final Five'; if we find them in the Fleet and can prove that they haven't done anything, I might be able to arrange for a peaceful… well, I don't like to use the term 'surrender'…"

The Doctor paused for a moment before he sighed in frustration as he stared at the papers and notes before him. "I'm sorry; I just feel… well, I'm not used to being this _lost_ …"

"We're talking about more than the fact that you don't know where we are, right?" Fitz asked.

"Quite," the Doctor said. "Believe me, I want to make getting these people to safety my primary concern, but I can't simply ignore the fact that we've never heard about this fleet before, even in some of my other trips back into your planet's more distant past, but then we have everything they believe about the Greek pantheon to take into account…"

"And then there's all that stuff we just heard about the star being about to go supernova," Compassion put in.

"They said it could be any time in the next year-"

"Are you going to believe these people, or the woman with inbuilt sensors and an increased awareness of everything going on around her on various dimensional levels that the rest of you aren't aware of?" Compassion asked with a slight smile.

"Good point," the Doctor noted with a smile. "Sorry, I'm still adjusting to being able to _talk_ to someone about this…"

"Hold on, are you saying that you're able to _sense_ that the star's about to blow up?" Fitz asked, looking urgently at Compassion.

"An explosion like this can cause a disruption in more than normal space; I'd need to be aware if I was passing through the Time Vortex within a certain range of this kind of thing so that it didn't damage my systems," Compassion explained. "I can't narrow it down to more than the next few hours when I'm 'grounded', but I feel safe in saying that nothing here can cope with an explosion like that if we stay here for too long."

"Uncanny timing, when you think about it," the Doctor mused, looking thoughtfully around the room as though he was taking in the ship as a whole. "Of all the stars that could go supernova, it's this one, just before these people can investigate that Temple down there, just before we arrive and make contact with them ourselves…"

He paused for a moment before he finally shrugged. "Ah well; probably just coincidence."

Fitz wondered if the Doctor genuinely believed that or not, but this wasn't the time to ask questions about something that he doubted his friend could answer when they had bigger problems to deal with. Lost for anything better to do, he turned his focus back to the paperwork in front of him, but the more he read about these 'Cylons', the more disturbed he felt.

It wasn't that he hadn't encountered evil during his time with the Doctor, but most of the time the attacking enemies were acting on a fairly small or specific scale, and on those occasions where things became bigger it at least felt like a 'fair' conflict; the idea that these Cylon things had destroyed twelve planets and then basically tried to rule what was left of humanity because they were annoyed at what had happened earlier…

He could kind of get why the Cylons had lashed out, but it still reminded him a bit of some of the stories he'd heard about how the Nazis got to power by exploiting the way everyone had kept Germany down after the last war; maybe these guys were too used to being angry to stop on a large scale.

"Anyway," the Doctor smiled hopefully, taking Fitz's mind back to the present, "on a more upbeat note, I can say that I like what I've seen of Admiral Adama and President Roslin so far; their anti-Cylon issues aside, they seem to be genuinely focused on saving their people rather than just killing the enemy."

"Which is a good thing for them," Compassion mused as she looked back at the Doctor. "I think you'd be less inclined to help the Cylons if _they'd_ found us first, after all."

"That depends," the Doctor said, shaking his head as he looked at another folder.

"On what?"

"Well, as I already mentioned, we already know that Sharon Agathon's defection proves that not _all_ Cylons hate humans… but I can't shake the feeling that there's more to this vendetta than just the belief that the humans would lash out at them at some future date," the Doctor said, looking grimly at his friends. "I can appreciate that some of the Cylons felt that way when they started this twisted plan, but at the same time, I find it hard to imagine that an entire race capable of changing their minds would _all_ share this same blind hatred after over three years, particularly when so many of them were apparently sleeper agents who wouldn't have known they were working for the destruction of those they were working with…"

"Unless something's _making_ them look at it this way?" Compassion finished for him.

"Someone's controlling the Cylons?" Fitz asked.

"If it was control, I think they would have done something about Lieutenant Agathon by now," the Doctor countered, shaking his head grimly. "No, what we're dealing with here is someone, or something, who has a specific vendetta against the human race and is using the Cylons to further that agenda; what we need to work out is whether it's someone they know about or not…"

Despite the Time Lord's grim mood, Fitz knew the Doctor well enough to recognise that his interest had been revitalised by this discovery.

It wasn't that the Doctor liked violence or having enemies- Fitz doubted that anyone sane would _like_ having enemies- but he guessed that his friend appreciated the potential evidence that they were dealing with something more obviously malicious than people- or robots- being idiots about the past.

If there was one thing that the Doctor thrived on, it was exposing how people were manipulating others…


	7. Cylon Analysis

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

AN: We're going to be jumping straight to the end of 'Eye of Jupiter'/beginning of 'Rapture' now, as there was no significant impact to the rest of the first episode's storyline caused by the Doctor's arrival; hope you like it

AN 2: If anyone wonders why the Doctor didn't wonder about the near-launching of the nuclear warheads after when the Cylon raiders were launched, I'm assuming that the conference room and other areas weren't alerted by the alarms as _Galactica_ wasn't set to full alert status due to them not being in a full battle.

A New Angel, a New Fate

After hours of going over everything the Colonial Fleet currently knew about the Cylons, along with raising and dismissing possible theories about what might be responsible for potentially manipulating them, the Doctor was grateful when Admiral Adama returned to the conference room; he might not be able to give them any positive news, but at this point any new information would be welcome.

"What happened?" he asked, his usual flippant mood quickly averted when he saw the grim expression on the admiral's face.

"Lieutenant Sharon Agathon has just been shot."

" _What_?" the Doctor and Fitz shouted.

"Wasn't she the Cylon?" Compassion asked, looking probingly at Adama. "As in, isn't she just going to resurrect… which will be the problem, right?"

"Why did she do that?" the Doctor asked, looking at Adam with a more pointed stare. "I assume that your only Cylon ally wouldn't go back to her own people lightly?"

"She just learned that her daughter has been in Cylon custody since we left New Caprica," Adama said grimly.

"Daughter?" Fitz repeated, looking back at the papers on the table in surprise. "But… hold on, there was something in these files… didn't the kid die?"

"I was unaware that my chief medical officer and the President had conspired to fake the child's death in the name of her 'protection'," Adama said grimly.

"What?" the Doctor said, in a low voice that Fitz knew didn't bode well for anyone who earned that kind of tone.

"According to President Roslin, they were concerned about the risk if the child was allowed to grow up with the Cylons aware of her existence," Adama explained his tone solemn. "I don't approve of what happened, and right now we're all hoping that Lieutenant Agathon is going to come back to us, but…"

He sighed as he looked at the Doctor. "I've ordered her body be moved to the morgue, and we're going to give her time to get back so that Athena can make her own decisions about what to do with it, but if you want to… take a look yourself…"

"Thank you," the Doctor nodded at the admiral as he stood up, appreciating the admiral's obvious discomfort at the current topic. "I have a couple of ideas for what I could find without needing to actually do anything _too_ invasive to the body, I assure you; Fitz will be fine looking over the files, but if Compassion and I could just… have a few moments alone with it?"

"I'll… see what I can do," Adama said, nodding at the Time Lord, a moment of silent gratitude passing between them for his acceptance of the situation.

The Doctor didn't like how rapidly the current situation seemed to be degenerating, but so far he was going to operate on the assumption that the humans were at least trying to atone for their past mistakes and take it from there.

Besides, with all the theories he was currently trying to juggle in his mind, a chance to directly analyse one of the human Cylons would greatly help him refine his current ideas…

* * *

Considering that she had been acting as an arms dealer and an indirect agent of Faction Paradox when she met the Doctor, Compassion wasn't entirely comfortable being in the _Galactica_ 's morgue. It wasn't that she wasn't used to death, but it was more that she wasn't used to it being so 'in her face'; the Remote's biomass bodies had tended to break down fairly quickly once they died on Anathema, and she didn't stick around to keep an eye on the bodies of anyone who died during her travels with the Doctor.

Maybe it was just the morality she'd 'inherited' from the Doctor's original ship via its connection to him, but ever since she'd been transformed, it was the little things that bothered Compassion more than she'd ever expected. On top of the knowledge that she was potentially immortal herself, death was something that made her even more uncomfortable despite, or perhaps because, she could never experience it herself.

Still, she understood why the Doctor had wanted her here; Fitz definitely wasn't better with dead bodies than she was, but she had a few advantages in her new state that Fitz couldn't offer. It had taken the better part of an hour for Adama to talk with Roslin and Cottle to make the necessary arrangements to allow the Doctor and Compassion into the morgue with the absolute minimal amount of notice given to the rest of the crew, but the Doctor appreciated the value of secrecy right now and was determined not to betray the admiral's gesture.

"Right," the Time Lord said, looking thoughtfully at the discarded body of Lieutenant Sharon Agathon lying in the middle of the morgue, her peaceful only slightly marred by the single cleaned bullet-wound in her head. "Let's get on with this."

Understanding what he meant without needing to ask for more, Compassion opened herself up as the Doctor picked up Sharon's body, the Time Lord walking nonchalantly into her and making a few quick adjustments on her console.

"Wait-!" Compassion began as the Doctor pulled on her dematerialisation lever, only to calm down as she felt Time shift around here without feeling a need to fully dematerialise. "What did you just do?"

"Temporal orbit," the Doctor explained, smiling up at Compassion's ceiling as he always did when they were talking inside her. "It bypasses the Randomiser as I've disabled the spatial systems, and you're more dipping a toe in the Vortex rather than actually staying in it; add in the fact that we're in space rather than on a planet, and we're fairly safe."

"I… see," Compassion's voice replied. "And you're doing this because…?"

"Because I'd like a few moments to look over Lieutenant Agathon's body here before I form an assessment of what Cylons are capable of, and the less time we're in here the fewer questions the admiral will have to answer later on," the Doctor explained, as he picked up the corpse and carried it towards the walkway leading deeper into Compassion's self. "I take it you've found your medical bay?"

"…Follow the lights," Compassion said after a moment's pause, followed by a series of lights coming on that led away from the console area, past the Doctor and Fitz's rooms into a darker part of the interior. Academically, the Doctor supposed that this made sense- while some of the rooms reflected Compassion's psychological state, the infirmary was a purely practical necessity for a ship that had therefore been 'delegated' to the part of her she didn't access much- but this thought was forgotten in a moment of nostalgia as he opened the door to reveal a room so like the rarely-used sick bay of his old ship.

He'd never liked using this thing for anything more than giving new companions their universal vaccinations, and its facilities were fairly limited when it came to dealing with anything more than simple illnesses or broken bones, but it was still a reminder of the home he'd lost so many months ago…

Shaking the thought off, the Doctor laid the body down on the nearest bed before wheeling over a medical scanner, taking a few moments to let it finish its work before he studied the results.

"Anything?" Compassion asked.

"A few details, anyway," the Doctor mused. "It's so subtle that the _Galactica_ wouldn't have noticed it without an in-depth MRI, but there are some slight traces of silicon in the brain and some light-sensitive connection units in their hands, as well as a concentration of nanites and electrical particles around the spinal column that seem capable of low-level transmissions; that may be how these models are able to 'download' into new bodies in the first place."

"As well as accelerating their own neural abilities?"

"Quite possible; this concentration of silica pathways would allow them to process data faster than a human brain would be capable of," the Doctor said, shaking his head thoughtfully as he looked at the readouts. "The problem is it's _too_ sophisticated for something that was clunking around like a standard robot just forty years ago."

"Does this tie into our discussion earlier?"

"Precisely," the Doctor nodded. "I don't care how intelligent these machines think they are; it should be impossible to go from inorganic robots to something that can mimic the human form to such an extent we need your sensors to be absolutely _certain_ we aren't dealing with a human being in less than four decades. The resurrection technology could have just been incorporated into the spinal column as a fixed unit, but instead it's somewhat spread out across the brain, and the data interface systems in their hands and arms are so integrated into the biology that they can even link up to more conventional computers so long as they have a direct means of data input. Even you needed some kind of wireless signal for your transceiver to pick up before you can do anything, and the transceiver itself was an obvious addition to what you were before you joined the Remote; there components were all essentially _grown_ to be part of the overall physiology."

"So something helped the Cylons become more human so that they could destroy the human race…" Compassion mused.

"Yes and no."

"Pardon?" Compassion asked, surprised at the contradiction. "They created the perfect sleeper agents-"

"And then gave those agents the desire and ability to have children with humans?" the Doctor pointed out, shaking his head as he studied Sharon. "It's obviously hard to be certain when I'm working with a dead body, but I wouldn't be surprised if all that stuff in the files about how love was necessary for the child to be conceived was more than just Sharon being idealistic; I think that the Cylons _need_ to fall in love with humans to achieve the right emotional state to trigger the ability to reproduce…"

"And why would anyone design them to be capable of that if they were just going to destroy the human race anyway?" Compassion finished for him.

"Precisely," the Doctor nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised if the Cylon models aren't even capable of getting each other pregnant; they might consider each other siblings, or whoever did this may have designed them not to be cross-fertile with each other."

"So someone simultaneously programmed these things to destroy the human race and then made it impossible for them to progress _without_ humans?" Compassion finished. "That makes no sense."

"To say the least," the Doctor said, nodding thoughtfully at the body before them. "The question is, are we dealing with someone who changed their plan and couldn't alter their biology, or are we dealing with _two_ plans?"

Compassion had to admit that she was starting to see the Doctor's point; there was definitely more to this mystery than just killer robots that wanted to wipe out the human race, but there was equally no way to know what that 'more' actually was…

"Anyway," the Doctor shrugged as he looked up at the ceiling, "get us out of the temporal orbit and I'll get her back to the morgue; I need some time to think about this…"


	8. Full Disclosure

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

A New Angel, a New Fate

The Doctor had been in several unusual situations since he'd first left Gallifrey, but while some situations were ones he'd never wanted to face while others were just odd rather than dangerous or terrifying, this was definitely one of the stranger; talking with the husband of a woman whose body he'd just 'dissected' when the man in question had rational reasons to believe that his wife would come back.

"Captain Agathon?" he asked, knocking awkwardly on the door that had been identified as the Agathons' quarters. For a moment, there was no sound, but then the door opened and a young man opened it, a hostile glare shifting to confusion as he looked at the Doctor.

"Who the hell are _you_?" he asked, a biting edge to his tone that the Doctor quickly decided not to take personally; considering what this man had been through recently, he was just grateful for any chance to talk.

"I am the Doctor," the Time Lord replied, smiling at him. "A few of your colleagues found my friends and I on the planet we're currently orbiting?"

It was probably an awkward time at best, but with Sharon still absent, this had struck the Doctor as the best chance he might have to get the captain's perspective on the Cylons in general and his wife in particular before she came back; from what he'd heard about the Cylon neural network, he wanted to be sure that Sharon couldn't give the other Cylons any information on him by accident before he introduced himself.

"You were… found on the planet?" Agathon repeated, looking uncertainly at the Time Lord, hostility replaced by confusion. "Who are you?"

"Just a traveller trying to help out," the Doctor said with a smile. "And on that topic, I wanted to let you know that I admire your decision regarding that virus."

"The virus?" Agathon repeated.

"I read about what happened when you found that Cylon ship," the Doctor explained; as always in his experience, the rapid shift of topic had distracted Agathon from his earlier questions for the moment. "I know there's nothing explicit, and if I'm wrong I apologise, but if I'm right… well, even if you weren't the one responsible, I wanted to assure you that I understood the reasons for doing that more than you might expect?"

"How?" Agathon asked, looking curiously at the Doctor.

"Well, I read your file, and… let's just say you're not the only one who decided that ending a war wasn't worth the moral costs," the Doctor said, his tone particularly solemn as he looked at Agathon. "Whatever else we did in the past, when it truly counted, you and I both recognised that even ending any possibility of future death wasn't worth the price we'd have to pay to defeat our enemies."

"It doesn't mean everyone else felt that way," Agathon said, his tone grim even as he looked at the Doctor with a certain tentative acceptance.

"That's the way of things," the Doctor smiled. "The point is that, no matter what else happens since, there are times when we all have to consider what we're willing to do in order to win, and you recognised that what you'd become if you did that would make you worse than what you were trying to stop."

For a moment, the two men sat in silence, the Doctor waiting for Agathon to respond, until the younger man smile.

"Thanks," he said, looking curiously at the Time Lord. "So… who are you anyway?"

"You may prefer to ask the admiral about that; I'm not sure you'd believe me even if I told you," the Doctor smiled at the young soldier, before he looked more solemnly at him once again. "But for what it's worth, from what I've heard of your wife, I think she'll be back sooner rather than later."

The Doctor wished that he could do more, but at the moment, everything was out of his hands; he just didn't have the resources he used to possess, and after all the effort it had taken to get Compassion to accept the Randomiser he wasn't comfortable removing it even if he could be sure where he'd find anyone.

With nothing else he could say to help Karl Agathon's current situation, the Doctor gave the young man one last smile before he walked out of the room.

The conversation hadn't accomplished much for either of them, but he'd introduced himself to a man he had a feeling he'd be getting to know in more detail the more time he spent with this crew; if he was staying around, he'd need to talk to more people than the admiral, the president, and the doctor.

It was a strange feeling to actually look forward to staying somewhere for a while, but after everything that had happened since Avalon, the Doctor would appreciate the chance to just rest somewhere for a little while; he might enjoy travelling, but as Ian had once noted, not having a choice made it harder to appreciate what you had.

For the moment, however, all he could do was wait to see how things would unfold later; as long as some of the crew were on that planet, the _Galactica_ and the Cylons were locked in a stalemate, and the only question was if they were going to resolve it before the star exploded.

He hated feeling this helpless, but without a TARDIS that he could control and the Cylons' current stand-off, he'd already exhausted what he could offer right now…

* * *

Looking around the conference room, Adama had to admit that this had certainly been the most interesting day he'd had for as long as he could remember. Not only had they uncovered a potential clue on the next step of the path to Earth- even if he didn't entirely understand how the carvings in the Temple could have predicted a supernova centuries in the future at just the right time for it to help them- but they'd even acquired a very interesting new potential asset in the form of the Doctor and his strange companions.

After everything they'd lost since the Cylons returned to attack the Colonials, it seemed like the last real 'victory' they'd had in their constant fight for survival was when they'd originally encountered Pegasus- setting up habitation on New Caprica barely counted as a win in his view considering the ecological state of that planet- and even that had been tainted by the discovery of Cain's various war crimes. The clue to Earth might be questionable, but even if the rational part of him wanted to argue that he knew just as little about the Doctor, some deeper part of him just made it feel… _right_ … to trust the Doctor's offer of help.

It was that part of him that had prompted his decision to arrange the current conference. What he was about to tell everyone might be unusual, but at least it was mostly positive. Considering the state of things on that planet towards the end, he wasn't sure if he should be more amazed that the team had made it off the algae planet with only one casualty, or that they'd managed to get away with Baltar and that Number Six as a prisoner, but even those victories paled in the face of what he was about to reveal.

"All right," he said, looking solemnly around the table, taking in the chosen attendees; the Doctor and his companions, the President, Colonel Tigh, Doctor Cottle, the Agathons, Lee, Kara, Dee, Sam Anders, Lieutenant Gaeta, and Chief Tyrol and his wife. "I've brought you all here because I think, of everyone on _Galactica_ , you are all the ones I can most trust with this information, while also being senior enough to use it if the situation comes up."

"Use what?" Sam asked, before his gaze shifted to the Doctor. "And what are they doing here?"

"We're part of the announcement," the Doctor smiled politely at the former Pyramid player. "I heard about what you accomplished during your time on that planet; a very neat job considering that you didn't have formal training before this war started."

"We do what we can," Kara shrugged, looking probingly at the strange man. "And who are you?"

"I am the Doctor," the Doctor replied with a smile. "And these are my friends, Fitz Kriener and Compassion; Compassion is from the former colony world of Anathema, and Fitz is from Earth."

That simple statement attracted incredulous stares from everyone who hadn't already heard this news, including a few shocked gasps from the Agathons and Gaeta.

"No frakking way…" Kara said, her damaged hands forgotten as she looked at Fitz with a broad grin. "You're from _Earth_?"

"Born and raised," Fitz shrugged.

"But before you ask," the Doctor interjected, holding up a warning hand, "we can't give you directions because we don't know where it is."

"Excuse me?" Dee asked, looking at the Doctor in confusion.

"To cut a long story short, my ship's navigation systems haven't been operating as efficiently as they could," the Doctor explained. "As a result, I can't be sure exactly where this planet is in relation to anywhere else I've been before, which means that I can't be sure where you are in relation to Earth, as much as I'd like to help you."

"I see," Dee said, her expression slightly sceptical as she looked at the Doctor.

"Believe me, if I could help you find a planet, I would, but right now I don't have anything to work with," the Doctor shrugged. "I'm not sure precisely where I am now in relation to Earth, and all my usual navigation charts were lost a while ago; all I can do is offer what knowledge I have to try and help you find it."

"And he's got a _lot_ more to offer than Earth's location," Fitz put in with a smile. "Trust me, what the Doctor doesn't know about science isn't worth knowing; I've seen him deal with everything from freaky special anomalies to stopping advanced alien schemes with just whatever he's got in his pockets-"

"Aliens?" Sharon looked at him in shock. "As in… sentient non-human life-forms?"

"There are real _aliens_?" Lee said incredulously.

"I've seen a few-" Fitz began.

"But we're fairly sure they're nowhere near this part of space," the Doctor put in, placing a hand on Fitz's arm as he looked reassuringly at the young major. "Believe me, the Cylons are the only thing you have to worry about at the moment, and I'm going to do everything I can to get you away from them."

"And you think you can do that?" Kara asked, looking him over sceptically.

"To be blunt," the Doctor looked grimly back at the young woman, "what have you got to lose by letting me stay?"

"I agree," Roslin said, nodding as she looked around the table. "I appreciate that this is an… unconventional situation for all of us, but if the Doctor and his friends are willing to assist us, I for one am not going to turn down further help."

With that said, she sat back and looked over at the Doctor. "That said, you realise that we will have to be… discreet about your presence; I'm sure you don't want to have to deal with some of the more… questionable members of our fleet."

"Seriously?" Fitz looked at her in surprise. "You're dealing with killer robots, and some people here are still complaining?"

"Seems to be human nature that you can't please everybody even if you keep saving their asses," Kara smiled grimly, before looking at Adama. "I take it they'll be staying here?"

"Lieutenant Gaeta has already agreed to work on finding suitably private quarters for the Doctor and his associates as long as they're with us," Adama explained. "Officially, the Doctor has agreed to act as our scientific advisor until we reach Earth; any paperwork or requests relating to 'John Smith' will be relating to him."

"John Smith?" Chief Tyrol repeated, looking curiously at the Doctor. "That's your name?"

"It's what I go by," the Doctor said, before looking over at Lieutenant Gaeta. "Anyway, assuming that we won't have to worry about the Cylons for a little while, could we see those quarters and give me a chance to check over your star-charts? After that 'Eye of Jupiter' incident with the nova, I'd like to see if there's anything else out here I recognise…"

As the Doctor and his two companions followed Gaeta out of the room, Adama nodded at the rest of the attendes that they could depart as well, leaving him to stare thoughtfully at the door as he contemplated the thought that had just occurred to him.

He didn't doubt the Doctor's story, and he strongly doubted that any of the three were Cylons, but that still left him with one crucial question that the Doctor had subtly gone to great lengths not to bring up; where had his ship been, and why hadn't he asked anyone to collect it once the Colonials had started treating them as friends rather than prisoners?

What wasn't the Doctor telling them…?

* * *

AN: A bit of an abrupt ending, but since the Doctor couldn't have much impact on these events, I thought it was more important to get on with the main plot of this story and get _Galactica_ moving once again. He may not be particularly involved in the next few episodes, considering that these events are fundamentally based around people being flawed rather than external intervention, but I do have some plans for the future regarding Kara, Baltar and the Final Five that I hope will prove interesting…


	9. The Two Eights

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

AN: To anyone who wanted me to jump straight to Baltar's interrogation, I apologise, but I wanted to let the Doctor attend to his curiosity about a few Cylon-related details first and foremost

A New Angel, a New Fate

Walking up to the door of the Agathons' cabin for the second time in as many days, the Doctor smiled slightly at the thought of his previous visit and the reasons for this one; he might be here to visit a completely different person, but his fundamental motive for being here was still the same.

"Sharon Agathon?" he asked, smiling politely at the young woman as she opened the door, her daughter cradled in her arms.

"Yes…" Sharon said, looking at him with a slightly pointed stare. "What are you doing here?"

"I just wondered if it would be possible to ask you a few questions," the Doctor explained, smiling reassuringly at her.

"About what?" Sharon asked, the Cylon defector relaxing slightly even as she remained tense. "Why we destroyed the Colonies?"

"Oh, nothing like that; I might consider humanity my favourite species, but I'm not blind to their more negative qualities, so I can guess how that happened even if I don't approve of it" the Doctor said, waving that issue off as he walked into the cabin. "As far as your defection goes… well, I know that this might sound trite, but I understand what you're going through."

"You do?" Sharon looked at him, a sense of curiosity about her manner even if there was a slight edge to her posture.

"I'm actually… on the outs with my people at the moment myself," the Doctor explained with a grim smile. "It's not for the same reasons, of course, but the basic principle still applies; we each realised that we couldn't agree with our people's plans on moral grounds, no matter the evidence that doing things their way was the only way, and decided to side with someone else instead."

"Really?" Sharon said, studying the Doctor in a more suspicious manner. "That's…"

"Quite a coincidence?" the Doctor said, smiling nonchalantly at her. "Possibly, but you'd be surprised how many times those happen; I've often found myself arriving in places at just the right time to be helpful, after all…"

He waved a hand awkwardly as Sharon looked at him with a new curiosity. "Anyway, that's not important right now; on an immediate note, I have to confess that I came here because I was curious about your design."

"My design?" Sharon repeated, clearly thrown at the unusual topic of conversation.

"Not just _your_ design, of course, but the human-form Cylons as a whole," the Doctor explained. "I was just curious how your people actually made this kind of 'evolutionary leap' so quickly; I appreciate that you're brilliant, but going from metal and wires to… well, _this_ in less than forty years a very significant leap even in my considerable experience."

"I… don't know much about that, I'm afraid," Sharon said, shaking her head slightly as she adjusted her grip on her daughter. "Once all of the active models were completed, the Cylon race… well, we stopped producing any new models."

"In other words, whoever designed you felt that twelve of you was enough?" the Doctor asked, curious despite himself; he didn't want to push Sharon too hard in case he triggered some kind of sleeper program to stop the Cylons thinking too hard about their origins, but it could be helpful to see just how much she did know.

"Maybe…" Sharon said, shaking her head as she looked at the Doctor. "I just… I don't think any of us really thought about it."

"Interesting…" the Doctor said, tapping his chin contemplatively. "Actually, that leads neatly into another topic; what can you tell me about these so-called 'Final Five', and why are you Eight?"

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, the other six models known to the Colonial Fleet are all straightforward enough, but if there's only seven of you, and these 'Final Five' are somehow different from the standard Cylon models, shouldn't your model be Seven rather than Eight?"

"I…" Sharon said, looking uncertainly at the Doctor for a moment, briefly confused before she shook her head as uncertainly was replaced by apprehension. "I don't know…"

"You don't know?" the Doctor repeated curiously.

"I don't… I never even _thought_ about that," Sharon said, looking at the Doctor with dawning shock. "I just… _accepted_ that I was Number Eight; I never even thought about the fact that I should be Seven…"

"Interesting… so not only do you defy numerical conventions, you don't even know _why_ you skipped a number," the Doctor mused, looking thoughtfully at Sharon.

"Why are you asking me all this?" Sharon asked, looking indignantly at the Doctor. Trying to rub it in that I'm not human? I know I might not have been _born_ or-"

"Your origin isn't an issue to me, Sharon," the Doctor said, holding up a reassuring hand. "I'm simply trying to understand how the history of your people fits together with what I've learned about Colonial history and technology; as far as I'm concerned, any gaps in your own knowledge are just natural ignorance rather than anything else."

"Oh," Sharon said, looking at the Doctor with new sympathy. "Sorry."

"It's all right; I can understand knee-jerk reactions," the Doctor smiled reassuringly at her. "I'd offer to try and see if I can find anything myself, but honestly, if we assume that your people were created as… well, a product line… your line was probably created without any knowledge of the Sevens, if they were ever actually _made_ in the first place. I suppose I could try talking to that blonde Cylon they found on the planet, since she's apparently a Six-"

"Don't," Sharon said firmly.

"I can't trust that one?"

"Trust isn't the issue; until we've decided what to do with her, you _can't_ talk to her," Sharon said. "If she manages to find a way to get back to the rest of the Cylons, she'd be able to tell them everything she's learned while she's here, which would include anything she learned from or about you, and that's even without downloading."

"Download- oh, when you're uploaded to new bodies after being killed," the Doctor said, looking at Sharon in surprise. "So when you 'download'… you enter a network and are sent to a new body?"

"Well, we're not constantly exchanging signals with each other, but when we download prior to resurrection any new experiences we've gained are added to the mainframe so that the other Cylons can draw on it," Sharon explained. "Key knowledge is mostly shared among the models who originally received it, which is why the Fours are regarded as the best doctors even though all of us could have that knowledge downloaded, but general information such as what ships are in the fleet and who's in key positions would be distributed all across the grid."

"I see… And the same thing applies to you?"

"Once I was resurrected on the baseship, they would have had complete access to everything I learned since I came here," Sharon confirmed. "The Admiral's already changed every passcode I knew or had access to so that the Cylons can't try and use them later, but my memories would still be available in the data stream even if they wouldn't have the emotional context."

"So no hope of simply forcing everyone to realise they're wrong by seeing humanity through your eyes…" the Doctor said, nodding thoughtfully for a moment before he shrugged. "Well, it's good to know what won't work, anyway."

"Won't work for what?"

"Convincing the Cylons to stop this war without destroying humanity," the Doctor said, looking resolutely at Sharon.

"What?"

"Oh, I want to protect this fleet as much as you do, but if your presence here proves anything, it's that the Cylon race as a whole _can_ be more than what they've shown themselves to be so far," the Doctor said firmly. "I have fought evil, Sharon Agathon, and your people aren't on that level yet; if there's a way to make them stand down, I _will_ find it."

Looking at the strange unnamed man as he sat before her, dressed in clothing that reminded her of old novels she was never sure if she'd read directly or just been programmed to know, Sharon was suddenly struck by the intensity in his eyes.

She had no idea how he might convince the Cylons to abandon their decades-long vendetta against humanity, but she also suddenly knew that if anyone was going to do it, it would be this man.

The only question was if the other Cylons would even want to listen to him…


	10. Contemplating Interrogation

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

AN: Regarding Baltar's interrogation, it's taking place around this time, as are the other events of "Taking a Break From All Your Worries", but I won't be looking at any of those storylines directly as the Doctor wouldn't have much to contribute during the interrogation, and he and his companions have other issues to assess right now that take precedent over trying to get involved in the personal lives of people they've only just met

AN 2: I make reference to Fitz's time with the Remote here, so a brief explanation for those who haven't read the novels. Basically, a few novels before the destruction of the TARDIS, Fitz was abducted by Faction Paradox and trapped in the past, where he became a member of a colony known as 'the Remote', who 'reproduced' by using remembrance tanks to recreate the deceased based on others' memories of them, with these remembrances naturally changing from the original as time went on (the main reason the otherwise sterile colony chose remembrance as a means of 'reproduction' rather than cloning that would just recreate the deceased over and over again). When the Remote arrived on Earth (and would paradoxically contribute to the events that led to Fitz being abducted in the first place), the Doctor encountered the version of Fitz that existed after two centuries of being 'remembered' back to life, and was able to restore this Fitz to basically the original version by using his and the TARDIS's own memories of Fitz. At this point, Fitz is aware of his 'true' origin but doesn't think about it much, reasoning to himself that he is basically Fitz Kriener as he and the Doctor are certain that the original Fitz died during his time with the Remote

A New Angel, a New Fate

Fitz had no idea what it said about his mental state these days that he actually missed the days when people were trying to kill him. He appreciated the chance to rest and enjoy himself as much as the next person, but even if the Colonials were willing to accept him and Compassion while the Doctor did whatever he was doing, he just felt like he was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. He supposed he could attribute it to the fact that the Colonials themselves had admitted that there were still five Cylon models unaccounted for, which meant that pretty much anybody could be an enemy agent and even they wouldn't know about it, but a part of him wondered if it was something else…

And no, he _wasn't_ worried about anyone thinking he was a Cylon or anything crazy like that; what the Remote had done to him and what the Cylons did weren't the same thing! The Doctor had told him more than once that he was biologically human as far as any tests would confirm, and that was all he needed (he wasn't going to think about the whole thing with his memories coming from the TARDIS; he was still _Fitz_ where it counted as far as the right people were concerned)…

Still, for the moment, the issue of the Cylons and the Fleet's attempts to reach Earth in this era were the main things to worry about. Since the Colonials didn't have the sensor range to plot a jump directly into the Ionian Nebula from this distance, they were making gradual jumps in that direction while the Doctor and Lieutenant Gaeta went over their star charts in case they managed to find a better 'road-sign' to Earth. This left Fitz and Compassion with little more to do than look around and take in more of the ship while the Doctor worked, even as Fitz did his best to maintain a low profile. Those present at the briefing had agreed to keep the fact that Fitz came from Earth a secret, but all of them knew that it would only take one slip-up to put him in an awkward position, and that was before any of these people knew about the time-travel angle.

Fitz might have enjoyed attention back on Earth, but it was different being appreciated for his singing and being hounded for stories about Earth when he already knew he couldn't tell anyone the truth in case it created some kind of time-travel mix-up. He didn't know what he could say if they were as far back in time as the Doctor suggested, but when even the Doctor didn't know anything about the future of the Fleet, Fitz agreed that it was better to err on the safe side.

Taking an experimental sip of what passed for a drink on _Galactica_ , Fitz wasn't sure if he should be disturbed at the taste or impressed that they had actually managed to make any kind of drink considering what he'd heard about the fleet's food issues. While the Doctor had speculated that Compassion may have a food machine inside her somewhere, he had also mentioned that the results would be so relatively tasteless that eating the processed algae that the rest of the fleet used would be more straightforward and stop anyone asking potentially awkward questions. Fitz still wasn't sure what story had been passed down to the lower ranks to explain why he and Compassion were given so much leeway when going around the ship, but he wasn't going to ask around in case it gave the game away. As it was, they attracted a few stares, but with the Doctor acting as the admiral and president's chief scientist, it seemed like nobody wanted to press his official 'assistants' for much either.

Looking over at Compassion, Fitz supposed that she was the main reason he wasn't having to deal with any awkward questions. The living TARDIS hadn't expressed any concerns about staying in one place for an indefinite period of time, and even if nobody knew what she was, she could still carry off that same edge that she'd developed with the Remote that made it awkward for people to approach her, and by extension anyone she was sitting with.

Glancing around the makeshift bar, Fitz smiled morbidly as he saw Lee Adama and Galen Tyrol awkwardly talking with the women he was fairly sure they were married to; Adama had a certain urgency about his manner that Fitz couldn't entirely place, but Tyrol and his surprisingly petite wife just looked particularly awkward.

"Something amusing?"

"Just… people-watching," Fitz shrugged as he looked back at Compassion, indicating the two couples with a brief nod. "It's almost morbidly amusing, when you think about it; the world's ended, and this lot can still find time to worry about their personal lives when they're dealing with genocidal robots and don't even have a planet any more."

"In my experience," Compassion noted dryly, "humans make a mess of things even under the best of circumstances; I hardly think it's surprising that they would continue to do so in a situation like this."

"Well…" Fitz shrugged. "You just think the last survivors of a whole civilisation would shape up a bit more, I guess; hold on to tradition, try not to screw up…"

"That's the Doctor's influence," Compassion noted solemnly. "Hope for the best, but you need to learn that he also prepares for the worst."

"Still sucks," Fitz said, wincing at the drink as he took another sip; it seemed to vary sharply in quality and flavour every time he drank a bit. "And I'm not sure if we should be glad they've got the news service still going or not; how many news options can you have when your civilisation's this small?"

"This isn't just about the state of society, is it?" Compassion asked, looking thoughtfully at Fitz.

"…Well, it is, kind of," Fitz shrugged. "I mean, Dad didn't really talk about the war that much, and I didn't like to listen to it anyway, but all that stuff we've been reading about that Zarek guy talking about how the people needed to step up… just reminds me of some of Dad's stories about the Nazis."

"I don't recall him preaching against particular ethnic groups-"

"Not in that way, more in the 'blame other people for the fact that life sucks' way," Fitz clarified. "Everything I read about him was more about blaming the current leaders of this fleet for getting everyone into this mess without clearly saying what he'd do differently beyond getting in charge himself. There's some stuff about a book he wrote that made a few points, but so far what he's done in this fleet just sounds like he's winning a lot of attention without actually saying what he'd change."

"I've looked at those old articles, and from what I recall, Mr Zarek hasn't said much on that topic since the Fleet left New Caprica-"

"You've got potentially everything the TARDIS had on the Doctor knocking about in there, and you haven't picked up enough to know that someone like that doesn't change his spots that quickly?" Fitz asked, looking at grimly at his new means of transport. "I'm not saying he hasn't calmed down a bit, but someone like that guy? Wouldn't surprise me if he's just waiting for a time when it's all calmed down a bit so he can step in and point fingers at everyone else for making the mess."

"That's… surprisingly insightful of you," Compassion noted, raising an eyebrow as she looked at him.

"You grow up hearing about that kind of thing, you notice it when it's all going on again after you've had a bit of time to pick up the details," Fitz said, shaking his head as he took another sip of his drink. "Just have to hope that's not going to be a problem for us before we've deal with the main issue right now…"

* * *

"Yes, that Tom Zarek _could_ be a problem," the Doctor said, nodding in agreement at Fitz's assessment before smiling at his friend. "Quite frankly, I'm impressed at your degree of insight, Fitz."

"Hey, we're normally just in a new place long enough to deal with the immediate issue; if we're going to hang around here for a while, I wanted to be sure we knew the general picture beyond killer robots," Fitz said, before his expression became grimmer. "Besides, I grew up hearing a few tales about someone like him…"

"Good point; he might not be motivated by perceptions of racial inferiority, but there is a prejudice issue there that we can't ignore," the Doctor nodded at his friend before studying the paperwork before him. "Actually, it would be best if you could keep an eye on the broader details here; even without the question of the Cylons' conflicting agendas, these people are giving me a surprising amount of material to work with that's open to a variety of interpretations…"

"You're getting all that from Doctor Baltar's interrogations?" Compassion asked, looking at the pile of paperwork in front of the Doctor curiously.

"Transcripts from the interrogations and accompanying notes about his history just before the destruction of the Colonies and his own subsequent role in this fleet," the Doctor clarified. "It's actually fascinating, in its way; before the colonies fell, Doctor Baltar was a strong supporter of the idea of returning to research in artificial intelligence, arguing that humanity shouldn't allow itself to be 'scared' from further research in this field just because of the Cylons, and then he was found by a raptor looking for survivors before the fleet had to leave the Colonies."

"At which point he was the best scientist they had left, right?"

"Considering that he was the best _before_ the worlds ended, that's hardly a surprise," the Doctor nodded. "He was persuaded to accept the position of Vice-President when Laura Roslin officially reformed the Colonies' primary government, mainly because of the good publicity, but he went on to run for the presidency himself when the time came for the next election."

"Yeah, that bit I don't really get," Fitz noted. "I was asking around, and apart from suggesting they settle on that planet that ended up being a crap choice all around, doesn't sound like Baltar really did much while he was acting as President, so why would he have even tried to get elected in the first place?"

"It was probably more of an ego thing than anything else," Compassion mused.

"Most likely; Baltar's need to appease his ego appears to be his biggest drive, when I get down to it," the Doctor acknowledged, turning back to the transcripts in front of him. "Actually, that would tie in to the most interesting thing about these interrogations…"

"You find anything interesting about interrogations?" Fitz asked, looking sceptically at the Time Lord.

"I don't agree with the idea, but I'm not going to completely ignore what comes up in them just because of the methods used," the Doctor clarified, before he turned back to the papers before him. "Anyway, assuming all these notes and recordings are accurate- and despite what some people would have us think, Laura Roslin strikes me as an honest woman so far- I find it interesting whenever he's questioned about the theory that he was involved in the original Cylon attack, Baltar never says that he didn't do anything."

"Excuse me?" Compassion asked. "How is that relevant?"

"And where did that theory about him being involved in the first attack actually come from?" Fitz asked. "I get that people don't like the guy, but I haven't heard anything about the idea that he was working with the Cylons before the worlds were blown up?"

"It's a theory that Laura Roslin has; there are apparently hints that Baltar was seen with a woman identified in hindsight as the Cylon woman Sharon Agathon calls Number Six before the attack, but obviously we don't have any concrete evidence of it," the Doctor explained. "Anyway, my point is that, during these interrogations, Baltar states that he wouldn't do anything to hurt a man's family, or that he didn't conspire with the Cylons in the attack, but he hasn't said anything to rule out the possibility that he might have been _tricked_ into helping them in some way. After all, before the attack, nobody in the Colonies had reason to believe that the Cylons had assumed human form; it wouldn't be impossible to assume that Baltar had contact with a Cylon agent and gave them what they were looking for assuming it was just for purposes of industrial espionage or something."

"I don't see anything about that theory here," Fitz noted, glancing over the papers in front of him for a moment. "Why haven't you mentioned that?"

"Because it's just an observation," the Doctor explained. "Don't misunderstand me, from what I've heard about him I fully agree with any assessment of Doctor Baltar as an idiot genius with a particularly self-centred view on everything around him, but I don't _know_ for a fact that he did anything."

"Idiot genius?" Fitz asked.

"A broad range of knowledge on several complex topics and a complete inability to put that knowledge to practical use; what I've found about his educational background showed a greater skill in biological rather than computer science, so a few of his technical victories are likely either aided by luck or external forces," the Doctor clarified. "Add in everything he said about 'God's plan' in his last interrogation, and I'm inclined to think that he also has an inability to face intense negative emotions, so he copes with them instead by essentially shifting blame on to a higher power."

"To give the impression that he can't have any individual responsibility for his actions?" Compassion asked.

"Would that link with that bit here about him wanting to be a Cylon?" Fitz asked, indicating the relevant part of the interrogation notes.

"Essentially, yes; if he was a Cylon then he wasn't a traitor but was set up to destroy the Colonies before he even began, which absolves him of responsibility as he was just following his programming," the Doctor nodded at his companions. "I don't know what he did or didn't do, and I don't think he's a Cylon, but I'm inclined to think there are a few secrets in his closet, and more importantly, he feels guilty about something even if he's psychologically incapable of acknowledging it."

"Ties into that 'idiot genius' bit?" Fitz asked with a smile.

"Precisely," the Doctor nodded, smiling back at his friend before his expression became grim. "Unfortunately, if we're dealing with a very intelligent man who's simultaneously convinced himself that he's the victim in everything, it's going to be very difficult to get the truth out of him…"

"Can't you just try and talk to him yourself?"

"I'm good, but I'm not exactly a qualified psychiatrist, Fitz," the Doctor noted, before he sighed. "Besides, I'd rather not do something that potentially controversial until I _know_ I can get results…"

"You're worried about how you'll look to people?" Fitz asked in surprise. "You normally just dive in…"

"We're going to be here for a while, and this isn't twentieth-century Earth, Fitz; I have no contacts and no history with anyone here. They may have accepted me as their unofficial scientific advisor out of a lack of alternatives, but I haven't done enough to earn their respect yet, and our position here is too fragile for me to try and assert any kind of authority."

"You think they'd turn on us?" Compassion asked.

"I think they're scared human beings dealing with an impossible situation; in that position, people can do anything," the Doctor clarified solemnly. "These people may have colonised twelve planets, but we have no evidence of alien contact, and their history with the Cylons would likely discourage them from being too quick to trust."

"I suppose there's only so much any of us can do about prejudice," Compassion said, the three of them sitting in silent reflection as they looked back at the last two locations they'd visited before arriving in the Temple. The mods and rockers might have turned to their conflict out of a lack of anything else to do in the city rather than any genuine prejudice, but the only way to end the conflict had been to put everyone in a new environment, and it had taken the destruction of the city to deal with the 'conflict' between the slimers and the Eskoni.

"In any case," the Doctor continued after the moment's contemplation had passed, "the end result is that I don't want to rock the boat and give the senior staff a reason not to like me this early on, which means we have to pace ourselves with what we reveal and what we try and change beyond anything that obviously helps with the Cylons."

"Any luck on that front?"

"Still trying to put together the conflicting strategies, actually; it just doesn't fit together…"

The Doctor paused in thought for a moment before he shrugged. "On the brighter side, Lieutenant Gaeta has found a nebula that looks like a likely mark on the route they're tracing to Earth; apparently a nebula not too far from here was created when a star went nova about the same time as the thirteenth tribe was allegedly travelling this way, which has prompted speculation that this nova was what inspired the designs in the Temple."

"That seems a bit of a stretch," Compassion noted.

"In terms of us getting here in time to see _this_ star go nova, yes, but on the other hand, it does give them a plausible destination," the Doctor said, nodding in acknowledgement of his friend's point. "Keep in mind that when even we don't know where we're going, the best thing we can do is follow the man provided and hope for the best."

The idea of the Doctor having nothing more to fall back on than hope didn't make Fitz completely comfortable, but he supposed it was the best any of them could do in a situation like this.

Still… even if he understood why the Time Lord preferred to stick around with this fleet rather than keep on running, he worried about what it said for a man to keep chasing other peoples' problems instead of facing his own.

He appreciated that losing the TARDIS meant more to the Doctor than just losing a means of transport, but that didn't stop him worrying about his friend's mental state…


	11. Meeting of the Doctors

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

A New Angel, a New Fate

Standing outside Baltar's cell, the Doctor wondered what it said about humans that their civilisations tended to treat prisoners the same way.

There were variations across the universe, naturally, but confinement and varied deprivation of key resources was always a constant. He tended to approve of it over the death penalty in most cases, as at least this method gave the prisoners a chance to improve their outlooks on life, but there were times when he wondered if it wasn't almost crueller than simply ending their suffering.

Of course, if this man was guilty of the crimes the Doctor thought he was guilty of, anything that forced him to think about what he'd done was a good thing in his book; maybe the man would finally face what he'd done if he had nothing else to do with himself…

"And you are?" the former President asked, after the two men had stared silently at each other for a few minutes.

"Doctor John Smith, Doctor Baltar," the Doctor nodded at the other man; he might be planning to talk to the man, but he wasn't going to give Baltar any reason to question his sanity until he had what he was looking for. "I'm… well, I'm your replacement."

"Replacement."

"As scientific advisor to the president, anyway; I have no interest in your _other_ previous positions," the Doctor clarified.

"I see," Baltar said, looking the Doctor over with a critical glance. "And you came here to ask for tips?"

"Actually, I just came to ask how it feels to be the stupidest genius I've ever met."

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, I'm not denying that you've had some impressive breakthroughs considering your limited resources in this fleet, but that aside, you're very limited," the Doctor clarified, enjoying the stunned look on Baltar's face; even after everything else had gone wrong in his life, the Doctor doubted that anyone had called this man 'stupid' before now. "You either failed or self-sabotaged your assigned duty to create a Cylon detector, your victory in attacking that mining facility was almost certainly luck more than anything else, your political career carried so little weight I think people only voted you in because you sound good, and I think we can all agree that the less said about your time as president the better."

"I saved Laura Roslin's life-"

"With a measure that could have occurred to any other medical professional; you just lucked out in being the one to voice it first," the Doctor said firmly. "Frankly, Doctor Baltar, you need to accept that you're better at selling yourself than actually accomplishing anything useful; no matter what the outcome of that upcoming trial I've heard about, you're never going to progress as a person if you don't accept the need to take your own ego out of the picture."

"It's not arrogance when it's fact-"

"And that ties into something else I've observed about you," the Doctor cut in. "What was with your comments during that stand-off above the algae planet about a higher power being responsible for this?"

"It can hardly be coincidence-"

"Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't, but the idea that it _must_ have been something more is what smacks of arrogance in my view. Sometimes things just happen, Doctor Baltar; it's a human response to want to find meaning in tragedy, but sometimes there just isn't one."

"I _survived_ -"

"As did several other people, as the fact that we're even having this conversation proves. You can't pin everything on higher powers, Doctor Baltar; you need to take responsibility for your own actions and their consequences, instead of passing it all on to someone else and claiming that you were just a pawn."

"A _pawn_?"

"You prefer to imagine that something's controlling you than that you can act on your own; that sounds like a pawn to me," the Doctor smiled. "Claim that you have some role in a greater plan if you like to think you're important enough for anyone up there to notice you, but personally, I prefer free will over thinking something else has complete control of my actions."

With that said, the Doctor turned around and left the cell, not even looking back at Baltar as he closed the door behind him. He doubted that anything he'd said would make a clear impression on Gaius Baltar, considering the scale of his ego and potential fear of facing the consequences of his actions, but he was satisfied that he'd done the best he could to make a point to the man in question.

He didn't think that Baltar had deliberately betrayed humanity to the Cylons in the original attack, but there were far too many questions about his behaviour since the Fall of the Twelve Colonies for the Doctor to feel comfortable letting that man think he was going to get away scot-free with anything. He believed in giving everyone a chance, of course, but sometimes they needed to realise that they needed it, and nothing he'd read about Baltar or experienced in that talk suggested that the man was psychologically capable of such a thing without a serious kick.

Doing things this way was difficult, but if he was going to be with the Fleet for a while, he had to do more to at least make himself feel like he was making a difference; the Cylon threat was too removed for him to do anything against them right now, and the Fleet didn't have the resources for him to help them upgrade anything.

He hated feeling so limited right now…

* * *

"They're rejecting medication?" Compassion looked sceptically at Fitz, as the three time-travellers sat in their shared quarters on _Galactica_ and discussed the events of the latest day on the ship. "Why would they do that?"

"It's a religious thing, apparently," Fitz shrugged awkwardly. "I couldn't really ask for more details without giving away that I'm not from around here, but it sounds like each planet had its own take on their religion, and everyone from this particular colony stereotypically has some… _thing_ against using actual medicine because they think it's unnatural or something."

"A whole colony? That does mean a _planet_ with these people unless I've misread a signal, correct?"

"A few people have put those traditions aside, certainly, but that doesn't change the fact that Sagitarron is generally seen by some as the key colony that the other eleven have always looked down on," the Doctor noted, sighing dejectedly as he looked at his two companions. "I'd like to argue that humans can overcome old prejudices, but with everything lost in such a violent assault, I suppose it's only natural that they hang on to anything of their old lives even if those parts weren't exactly pleasant ones."

"Life," Fitz groaned, rolling his eyes in exasperation. "Why can't people just get over it?"

"The greatest question I can't answer," the Doctor shrugged. "As for the disease issue you mentioned, maybe I could see if I can develop some new treatment that can be administered via the air filtration system in relevant ships so that they don't actually _know_ they're taking the medicine, but that's more treating the symptoms than the main issue, particularly if Captain Agathon is correct about his theory that someone's killing the Sagittarion victims of this disease…"

"Ideas?"

"For the antivirus, a few possibilities come to mind, but for the possible killer, no immediate ideas," the Doctor shook his head grimly. "You have to keep in mind, Fitz, this is a very primitive society by the standards of some space-faring organisations we've encountered; I just don't have the resources to do more than what I've done so far."

"Then why stay?" Compassion asked. "I appreciated your suggestion about how this gives us time to move on without the Time Lords detecting me-"

"There _is_ a mystery here, Compassion," the Doctor looked firmly at the sentient TARDIS, tapping the paperwork scattered over the table in their current quarters. "We have the immediate problems, and maybe we can't do much about social conflict, but we can make these people see that there has to be another solution to this mess than just trying to destroy the Cylons or constantly running from them."

"And the Cylons?"

"One of the many things I wish I could answer," the Doctor said, sighing in exasperation. "If I only knew _what_ we were dealing with, maybe I could do something, but I'm still stuck on whether we're dealing with a changed plan or a hi-jacked one."

"Well, at least it's not boring," Fitz shrugged. "And food aside, there are worse places to be; at least it's cool and nobody's trying to kill us or insist we join them over the other guy."

"Haven't we done that anyway?"

"We're on the Colonials' side because the Cylons destroyed twelve planets and didn't even declare war first; we can all agree that the mods and rockers never even gave us that much," the Doctor noted. "Conditions aside, the Colonials have been nothing but fair to us after our initial contact, and their genuine priority seems to be survival over killing the Cylons; I don't think we can extend the same courtesy to the other side at the moment."

Fitz didn't ask if the Doctor had any ideas on that front either; if the Doctor knew what to do about the Cylons, he would have said something already.

As it was, with no further clues to go on about the possible identities of those unknown five Cylons, or any explanation for the various inconsistencies he'd discovered in their design, they were just stuck in a loop…

"Doctor?"

"Madame President?" the Doctor said, looking up in surprise as Laura Roslin walked into their room. "Is something wrong?"

"I… wanted a neutral opinion on something," the older woman said, looking uncertainly at Fitz and Compassion.

"Anything you have to say to me can be said to them," the Doctor said before Roslin could ask the question herself. "What's the situation?"

"Gaius Baltar."

"Has something happened?"

"Not so far," Roslin replied. "And that's part of the problem, really; I just had a discussion with Tom Zarek where he supported the idea of declaring martial law during Doctor Baltar's trial to prevent the media frenzy that would result if I left it as it was…"

"And you're concerned that he's right?" the Doctor asked.

"Shouldn't I be?" Roslin asked.

"Wouldn't everybody just be clambering for the guy's head anyway?" Fitz asked. "I mean, he basically handed everyone on that new planet over the Cylons for four months; he can't exactly be liked after all that…"

"Unfortunately, Mr Kriener, Baltar remains a very… controversial figure," Roslin explained. "Some have argued that he could have done nothing else during the occupation but surrender, or that his actions may have limited the scope of what the Cylons did to those left on the planet…"

"People can excuse anything with the right incentive," Compassion mused. "Add in the fact that your current administration has its problems, it's only natural for people to turn to the alternatives if they feel the existing one doesn't work."

"A sad fact of human nature, in my experience; people play up the flaws of what's there because they imagine that the alternative will be better," the Doctor mused. "Fitz's father had to deal with that sort of problem, actually; his country was in a troubled state and elected a leader who… well, things didn't go well."

"I… see," Roslin said, looking uncertainly at Fitz for a moment before she decided not to press the matter. "In any case, while I acknowledge Tom Zarek's point, I wanted a more… independent… opinion on the right course of action…"

"I understand," the Doctor smiled reassuringly at Roslin before nodding grimly at her. "Give Baltar the trial."

"Even with the risk of a media circus?"

"Even then," the Doctor confirmed. "There are always risks, Madam President, but the most important thing in a situation like this is to show that what you have works, no matter how difficult it might be to do so."

"Thank you," Roslin nodded gratefully at the Doctor. "I… appreciate that view."

"Sometimes you have to believe that people won't fall as far as you worry they will, Madame President," the Doctor smiled. "It might seem naïve, but if you don't have faith, how are you going to get anywhere?"

"To degrees, anyway," Roslin smiled. "On the topic of faith, regarding the Sagittaron issue…"

"I'm working on a cure that can be dispersed via the air supply; I'll let you know when I have any more to offer," the Doctor nodded.

"Thank you," Roslin smiled. "We appreciate your efforts on our behalf, Doctor."

"It's what I do," the Doctor smiled, hoping that he wasn't over-estimating his abilities.

He knew what he wanted to do, but even with whatever he could salvage from Compassion's interior labs and the Fleet's own resources, he had to be careful not to suggest that he was more capable than he was; this Fleet had to survive on their own merits or he couldn't be sure if he was having too much influence on the original course of events…


	12. Compassionate Secrets Exposed

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

AN: For the record, I decided to just skip the events of 'Taking a Break From All Your Worries' as that episode was just about Lee, Dee, Kara and Sam's personal issues amid the flashbacks to life on New Caprica, so nothing happened that the Doctor and his companions would even be aware of, much less have much influence on.

Besides, I think you'll be very satisfied with the twist I've included for the events of this chapter regarding the Doctor's relationship with the _Galactica_ senior staff…

A New Angel, a New Fate

It was probably strange to consider a rag-tag fleet that held the last remnants of a lost civilisation as somewhere to take a rest, but in a morbid way, this really was one of the better places that the Doctor had stayed in for more than a few days. The food could be better, of course- even with Compassion's food machine and kitchen to provide alternative sustenance, they needed to eat sometimes to stop anyone asking awkward questions- but he found himself enjoying the company of the ship's senior staff, and there were enough little jobs around the ship for him to occupy himself during his nightly wanderings without any of the Colonials realising how little he slept.

He might not be able to do much, but between trying to put together the pieces of the mystery of the Cylons, or offering Lieutenant Gaeta what insight he could about how to find a route to Earth, he liked to think he was still making those little differences that he'd told Zoe were so important after that mess on Ockara. For today, he'd volunteered to fix a broken water line in the galley to spare the rest of the maintenance staff for other responsibilities, which, while a simple job, it kept his hands and mind occupied for a little while.

 _It's just frustrating that I have to do that to feel like I'm doing anything here…_

He knew that Fitz in particular worried about him since Avalon, but it wasn't like he had time to find a therapist and talk about how he felt about recent events in his life. Even if he knew someone qualified to treat him who'd also believe him, he couldn't take the risk that the Time Lords would find him if he tried to override the Randomiser, and right now the Fleet had bigger problems than one man missing an old friend.

Still, as hiding places went, even with the threat of the Cylons, the Doctor felt that the time in the Fleet was proving to be a good experience for his companions. Compassion seemed to trying to interact with other people more than she might have done in the past, and Fitz was getting along with some of the senior staff who knew about his real history…

As he reached the galley with the broken pipe, the Doctor sighed inwardly as he crouched down and took in just how simple the job was; he was committed to helping these people, but quite frankly, he hadn't been this bored since that time he'd lost the TARDIS and his companions in Byzantium. Even during his exile to Earth and that time he'd been trapped on the Divergent planet in the anti-time universe, he'd had some other project to keep himself occupied, but for now all he had was several big questions and no idea how to find the answers. He'd been tempted to throw in his own opinion regarding Roslin's attempts to work out the legal rules for Baltar's trial, but he'd quickly decided that this was something the Colonials should handle themselves; he could work with existing legal systems, but trying to shape a society that he wouldn't be a permanent part of felt too arrogant for his comfort.

As it was, he'd found himself reduced to a simple mechanic so that he had some task to occupy himself when he ran out of ideas, while Fitz and Compassion spent their time mingling with the general populace to get a better feel for the state of life in the fleet. He appreciated the value of the little pieces, but he was used to being able to make a bigger impact than this; he hadn't left Gallifrey to fix up pipes…

He shook that thought off as he adjusted the knobs around the pipe to stop the water while he replaced the damaged section. He preferred being able to make a bigger impact than this, but when you didn't know where you were or what was going on, sometimes all you could do was a bit of quick maintenance.

On a personal level, he had to wonder what was up with the admiral today. He'd passed by the man in the corridor this morning, but although Adama had responded to his greeting, something in his manner had reminded the Doctor of his time with the Brigadier in Avalon, as though the seemingly older man was hiding some greater pain he didn't want to share. He had no intention of prying into the matter- if Alistair had taken so long to tell him about Doris's death when they'd known each other for years he certain wasn't going to make Admiral Adama tell him what was bothering him now unless it became a problem- but it did make him wonder…

"You OK there, sir?" a voice asked.

"Oh, I'm fine… Hotdog, wasn't it?" the Doctor asked, stepping up from the pipe to look at the younger Viper pilot. "Just dealing with a cracked pipe."

"Really?" Hotdog looked at him in surprise. "I thought you were the president's scientific advisor?"

"That doesn't mean I can't get my hands dirty, does it?" the Doctor smiled back, grabbing his coat from where he'd left it on the ground when he started work.

"Guess not," Hotdog shrugged. "Sorry 'bout that; we all got so used to Baltar staying in his lab even when he was just the scientist…"

"We're not all that neurotic," the Doctor grinned at the other man; he didn't like lying to someone who seemed perfectly friendly, but he had to be careful when dealing with matters in the Fleet. "Doctor Baltar's problem was that he wanted to be a celebrity for his brilliance; I'm happy enough just getting the job done even if nobody knows I was here."

"Same with anyone here, I guess," Hotdog smiled. "We'd just be faces in the crowd if the Colonies weren't lost, but now we're the last line of defence, everyone knows our names."

"The balance can be awkward, but I like to think you're all coping well enough," the Doctor said, understanding the darker part of Hotdog's last comment and wishing he could do more about that issue. "Anyway, the pipe's sorted now-"

The sound of an alarm blaring interrupted whatever he might have said next, prompting the Doctor to drop his tools and hurry from the gallery, Hotdog just behind him. He didn't know what had prompted that alarm, but if there was a problem, he wanted to find out what was going on as soon as possible in case there was anything he could do. He was only half-way to the control room when he nearly ran into Admiral Adama and Colonel Tigh going the other way, Tigh grabbing him by the arm and dragging him after them.

"Can I ask-?"

"Two of my people are trapped in a sealed airlock and running out of air," Adama cut in, as Tigh pushed the Doctor forward to walk alongside the admiral. "Can you do something to get them out?"

"I'll see what I can do," the Doctor nodded in response, already brainstorming possible solutions to the problem described; it would obviously depend on the exact nature of the damage, but he wasn't going to give up without even trying.

He still had no clear plan how he was going to save this fleet, but if he could save any lives here and now, he wouldn't give up until he knew that it was impossible.

After a few more minutes of walking while being briefed on what had actually happened, their small group came to the damaged airlock, the Doctor joining Adama and Tigh in the control room off to the side after the Doctor had confirmed that the door to the airlock itself was sealed shut.

Looking at the airlock through the window, the Doctor noted that the battle damage from the initial Cylon attack had left the airlock interior scarred, but it seemed as though the actual mechanical components had only been damaged by the shockwaves rather than anything tearing in the airlock itself. On a superficial level, it meant that there was little in the way of obvious damage for anyone to fix, but on a practical level it eliminated the immediate hope that he could just find a convenient hatch that would let Tyrol and Cally do something about the problem themselves.

As Adama reassured the two deckhands that he would do his best to get them out, the Doctor was already brainstorming possible solutions. Cutting through the doors would take too much time given the size of that breach and the rate at which they were losing air, anything powerful enough to destroy the glass in the observation room would kill Tyrol and his wife at the same time, and while it might be possible to rescue them by opening the doors with a Raptor waiting just outside, it would still be cutting it closer than the Doctor would like…

It was at that moment that another idea came to the Doctor.

It would risk giving away his greatest secret to these people, but with lives at stake, he had to have faith that he'd made enough of an impression on the Colonials by now that they wouldn't immediately throw him and Compassion out of this airlock if he was wrong…

"Admiral Adama," he said, holding out an arm to stop the admiral as he turned to leave the room, "do you trust me?"

"Doctor-" Adama began.

" _Do you trust me_?"

"…Yes," Adama said after a moment's silence, looking thoughtfully at the Doctor as he spoke, as though considering his response even as he made it. "You're an unusual man with strange motives, but… I trust you."

"Thank you," the Doctor nodded at him, his gaze fixed on the admiral to ensure that his new ally understood the importance of his next request. "I have a plan to get them out, but I need you to clear this area of everyone but essential or senior personnel that you _know_ you can trust with a great secret."

"Which is?"

"I'll explain once it's over," the Doctor said firmly. "Right now, we have less than an hour to get Chief Tyrol and his wife out of that airlock; we don't have time to get into long discussions."

After exchanging another stare with the Doctor, Adama nodded, turning to the crew to issue his orders while the Doctor hurried to the phone in the airlock; he was fairly sure he remembered where Compassion had said she was going to spend the day, but there was always a risk that she'd changed her mind…

* * *

"We're seriously waiting for the alien to come up with something?" Tigh asked, looking sceptically at Adama with his one remaining eye as the Doctor paced in front of the airlock, the area evacuated of all but Adama, Tigh, Gaeta, Lee, and a couple of the more long-standing _Galactica_ marines. "He's talked a lot, but-"

"He hasn't let us down yet," Adama interjected. "Gaeta and Lee have their teams brainstorming other options if whatever the Doctor has planned doesn't work, but he's already been more use to us than Baltar was in all those months before New Caprica."

Tigh might be uncertain about the Doctor as a person, but even he had to acknowledge Adama's point. Baltar had pulled off what could have been a lucky break when he'd identified the weak spot of that Cylon mining facility, and saving Roslin from her cancer had certainly helped, but after the man's dismal failure at creating a Cylon detector and his equally poor performance as President, it had affected most of the crew's views on the man's scientific abilities.

The Doctor might not have had many opportunities to prove himself so far, but he had at least shown that he never promised anything unless he was certain he could deliver on it. The real test now was what he thought he could do about _this_ particular turn of events…

"Yes?" Compassion asked, the Doctor's strange companion walking up the corridor to casually study the assembled _Galactica_ senior staff. "What did you call me for?"

"This airlock's jammed and we have two people trapped on the other side of it with a hull breach draining their air supply," the Doctor explained, patting the airlock door in question. "I appreciate that this isn't what you normally do, but if you could allow Fitz and I to enter you, do you think you might be able to help us get through _this_?"

"Hold on; you both enter _her_?" Gaeta looked at the Doctor and Compassion incredulously. "As in-"

"As in this," Compassion said, as she walked up to lean against the door, before…

Adama had no idea how to describe what he witnessed; it was as though the strange redhead had suddenly spread her arms and turned into a large hole in the middle of the airlock. As Adama and his crew could only stare in shock, the Doctor walked through the hole and nonchalantly led Tyrol and Cally out of it, the two shivering but alive, followed by the hole… stepping away… to turn back into Compassion.

"How was that?" the Doctor asked, looking curiously at Compassion even as he crouched down to rub Tyrol's back, helping the larger man warm up as the chief wrapped the shivering Cally in his arms.

"Uncomfortable," Compassion shrugged. "I can do it, but it feels like I'm trying to ignore-"

" _What the_ _ **FRAK**_?!" Tigh yelled, storming up to haul the Doctor away from Tyrol and slam him against the wall. "How by all the gods did she _do_ that?"

"If you'll put me down, I'd be happy to explain," the Doctor replied, smiling politely at Tigh despite the older man's harsh words.

"Colonel," Adama said, allowing Tigh to put the Doctor down before he faced the other man himself. "I trust you have an explanation for this, Doctor?"

"Certainly," the Doctor smiled, looking around at the rest of the crew before he indicated Compassion. "If you would just step inside, you may find it easier to believe what I'm about to tell you."

"Inside?" Gaeta asked, before Compassion stepped forwards and opened out into a darkened door, this time clearly not leading to anything the crew could already see.

"Inside," the Doctor nodded politely at the other man, before he stepped into the door himself. "If you would?"

After exchanging a glance with Tigh and Lee, Adama stepped forwards to enter the door that had once been a woman, followed by his son, Tigh and Gaeta. There was a moment of total darkness, and then the four men found themselves staring around a room so deep and dark that they couldn't see the bottom, with a six-sided console on a central platform in front of them. The console itself appeared to be made of stone, with harsh edges and various controls on its various panels, as well as a strange crystal in the centre of the console made of a substance that Adama didn't recognise.

" _Incredible_ …" Gaeta said, staring around the room in awe before he looked at the Doctor, who was standing nonchalantly at the side of the console. "What… how is this possible?"

"It's dimensional transcendentalism; a key secret of my people," the Doctor explained. "We're essentially existing within a completely separate dimension from Compassion's exterior right now; we're still connected to her, but obviously we aren't actually _inside_ her."

"So… is this why you never asked us to go back for your ship on the algae planet?" Lee asked the Doctor, studying the fleet's new scientific advisor with a thoughtful glance. "Because… Compassion _is_ your ship?"

"Compassion is my _companion_ ," the Doctor corrected, glaring pointedly at Lee. "The fact that she is my current transport is irrelevant to that."

"Right…" Lee said, having the decency to look uncomfortable when he was challenged on that point.

"How the _frak_ is this even _possible_?" Tigh asked, glaring at the Doctor in frustration as he waved his hands at their surroundings. "I don't care if you're a fracking alien, nobody can have all… _this_ inside them!"

"Normally, yes, but Compassion was exposed to a very… unique set of circumstances," the Doctor explained. "To make a long story short, her colony world of Anathema had a very complex society that led to Compassion having an unusual receiver literally wired into her brain that left her susceptible to all kinds of external signals and influences. I wanted to give her a chance to develop as herself rather than changing depending on what someone was transmitting in her area, so I linked her receiver to my original transport in the hope that it could act as a filter, but I failed to consider that the receiver would take in the signals it was receiving from my old ship and convert them into block transfer computations-"

"Into what?" Gaeta cut in.

"A highly complicated form of mathematics that can basically recreate any object so long as sufficient detail is provided for the original calculations," the Doctor explained. "I don't fully understand how to do them myself without a great effort, but I understand how it works; I just never anticipated that Compassion's receiver would adapt the signals she was receiving from my own ship in such a manner, with the result that she was transformed into… well, _this_."

"Sums turned an ordinary woman into _this_?" Tigh asked, indicating the console room incredulously. "And if you had your ship all the time-"

"Because I was being honest when I said that my ship's flight records were scrambled," the Doctor explained. "After Compassion was transformed, I was forced to go on the run from my own people because…"

"Because his people basically want me as breeding stock to create a new fleet of ships like me," Compassion's voice cut in from the ceiling, prompting the Colonials to jump in shock as they looked up at the voice. "The Doctor chose my freedom over the desires of his people, and we left before they could take me into 'custody'."

"OK…" Lee said, nodding awkwardly at the ceiling before he looked back at the Doctor. "So… what does this have to do with your flight records?"

"Part of my efforts to keep Compassion safe involved installing a randomiser into her systems," the Doctor explained, patting a small box with a red-handled lever on the console. "Essentially, the randomiser constantly feeds random information into her navigation systems so that my people can't track her as even _I_ don't know where we're going, but the cost is that I can't be sure where I'm going even if I have some reason to go somewhere specific."

"And… you can't just disconnect this… randomsier?" Adama asked.

"Not without causing Compassion intense pain, and even then it wouldn't help me work out where I am _now_ ," the Doctor clarified. "Even if I disconnected the randomiser right now, I still wouldn't have the exact coordinates of our last destination, which means I can't be certain where we are in relation to Earth until she next materialises somewhere."

"Materialises?"

"She basically travels in a similar manner to your own jump-drives, moving from one place to another without physically crossing that territory."

"Ah," Adama nodded.

"But… the power she'd need to do that…" Gaeta began.

"I can't tell you how that works," the Doctor cut in, holding up a hand to halt the lieutenant. "I've already told you a great deal about myself that I wanted to keep secret, but I'd rather not share any more than I absolutely have to in case… well…"

"The Cylons find out," Adama finished for him.

"Among other possibilities," the Doctor nodded grimly. "You have to trust that if I could do anything to help you beyond what I'm already doing, I would have done it by now, but as it stands, the best I can offer is helping you work out where Earth is in relation to our current position based on your star charts and my own knowledge."

Looking around the strange console room of their new ally's unconventional mode of transport, Adama was surprised to find that he appreciated the other man's perspective. It was strange to think of a woman as being a means of transport, but from what the Doctor had told them, she had one key advantage over even Sharon as she had apparently started out as human rather than being created in this state, and he was now only acting to protect a friend from what he perceived as unjust treatment.

"We understand," he nodded at the Doctor at last before looking over at the rest of his crew. "So… we'll keep this between us."

"Keep this secret?" Lee repeated in surprise.

"Whatever Miss… Compassion… is, it doesn't change the fact that she's here to help," Adama said firmly. "I will inform President Roslin and the Agathons of this… discovery… but that's as far as we go for the moment."

"Probably for the best," Tigh muttered, glancing around the console room. "Hell, _I_ don't get how I'm going to cope with this fraking thing right now…"

The Doctor simply nodded at Tigh as the group moved out of the console room, Compassion returning to her original appearance as the last of the Colonials left her interior.

Adama wasn't going to say that he had been expecting this discovery, but as he looked at the strange young woman who had joined their journey to Earth, he felt better knowing even this bizarre fact about her.

Besides, whatever else the Doctor was, he always made it clear that he had no ambitions to be a public figure, which made him a significant improvement over Baltar in Adama's view.

Why was it that people who wanted attention could never be satisfied unless they had it all…?


	13. Debating Doctors

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

AN: A few doubts about the main content of this chapter, but I hope you enjoy the Doctor's talk with Baltar before the concluding revelation, as I decide to use Whoniverse continuity to clear up my biggest question about an element of the BSG mythos…

A New Angel, a New Fate

"Can you _believe_ these people?" Fitz asked as he walked into their small compartment.

"In what way?" the Doctor asked, looking curiously up from the papers he'd been working over.

"Just… something I heard around that bar in the lower decks," the young man said, sitting down opposite the Doctor. "I thought these guys realised that they'd have bigger issues to work on what with the whole 'killer robots destroyed our worlds' thing, but I just heard one of the deckhands complaining about how someone's promotion was turned down because they think that none of the senior staff want people from certain colonies to be in positions of power."

"Really?" Compassion looked at Fitz in surprise.

"It can't be _that_ big an issue, surely?" the Doctor asked, looking uncertainly at Fitz. "I mean, I appreciate that these people have problems with inter-colony interaction from what I've read of their history, but as you said, there are bigger things to worry about right now…"

"Doctor," Fitz looked at his friend, "I get that you like to think the best of people, but this isn't the kind of situation that helps people show their best. No offence, but you're used to being there when everything's just gone to crap and people have to rise or fall right now or they're dead; everyone's been stuck in some kind of freaky limbo until these Cylon things stop trying to kill them and/or they find a good planet, so they just end up turning to their old issues to have something to complain about that isn't terrifying."

"It's the Maker's world all over again," Compassion mused. "They can't accomplish anything with what they have, so they turn to what they know because it's easier."

"…Fair point," the Doctor sighed, nodding in acknowledgement of his companion's point. "I should have taken that into account; I suppose I just… wanted to believe that Alec and Rick's groups only went that far because they had literally _nothing_ else to do…"

"And here they have something to focus on and the means of doing it but they're still going that far anyway," Fitz finished for his friend. "Yeah, I wish we had something to hit too…"

"Hardly that simple, Fitz," the Doctor noted, scowling briefly at his companion before he sighed and stood up. "But maybe I should talk with Bill and Laura and see if there's anything I can do about any of this…"

"This isn't exactly a problem that you can solve with some of your usual tinkering, Doctor," Compassion pointed out. "You said yourself you've never even encountered this type of star drive before now-"

"But that doesn't mean I can't try," the Time Lord pointed out, before he walked out of their room.

That was the trouble with Compassion, really; she was becoming so much more than human, but she still had trouble appreciating the importance of emotional support even if explicit help was impossible…

* * *

As he walked towards Baltar's cell, the Doctor once again cursed the chain of events he'd been dropped into, particularly after his recent briefing from the admiral and the president about that labour strike. He always liked to tell himself that he had learned when he needed to take a step back and let humanity handle their own problems while he dealt with the external threats, but looking back, how much of that attitude had been motivated by his own knowledge that they'd come through their problems themselves most of the time?

He could turn down Winston's request for the TARDIS key because he knew Britain would win the war eventually, he'd tried to stay out of that mess with the Mongols before he'd found that alien prisoner because he knew they'd eventually stop, he'd limited his roles in Waterloo to stopping the Countess and Davros changing things, he'd only become so involved in the Selachians' final stand because Zoe had been caught up in that mess… but right now, when he had a blank slate and no clear idea what would happen to these people, he wanted to help but had no idea how to do so. His greater experience and scientific background wasn't any use when he didn't have enough resources available to effect any kind of long-term change, and while he'd volunteered to check out the situation on the tylium ship, trying to take responsibility for all the repair work this fleet would need to get back into perfect shape was an exercise in futility at best. As Colonel Tigh had noted during that mess with the airlock, it would take at least three months in drydock just to hammer out the dents in _Galactica_ , never mind everything else that was wrong with the fleet.

Talking with the admiral and the president had allowed him to establish that the reason for the latest bout of civil unrest was apparently a book Baltar had written prompting the rest of the fleet to start asking a few questions about the long-term social implications of their current society. After glancing over the book, while the Doctor disapproved of the consequences of Baltar's actions, he had to admit that he agreed with some of the points the text had brought up, particularly when he'd conducted a quick bit of research and confirmed that the higher-ranked members of the remaining fleet tended to come from particular worlds in the former colonies, while those from other colonies never seemed to get the chance to grow (although he liked to think that those responsible for promotions promoted for skill and the problem was partially that the relevant colonies didn't provide as many opportunities to train their people in the relevant skills).

On the one hand, the idea of someone complaining about issues such as spare parts and compensation seemed excessive when they were dealing with an entire fleet that had survived an apocalypse-level attack by killer robots, but on the other hand, the workers' comments about harsh living conditions wasn't totally unreasonable, particularly when there was the simple issue of cabin fever to take into account.

 _I became frustrated when I had an entire planet available to me during my exile; I can't expect humans to cope well when they're stuck in these ships for months._

He could appreciate that the people were frustrated by their circumstances, but at the same time they had to be aware that they weren't going to be around to complain if the next Cylon attack happened when everyone was trying to refuel or something like that. Even with Compassion's secret known to key members of the fleet, he doubted she had enough space to act as a 'life boat' for them all, and that was before he thought about the problems of keeping everyone fed until he could find a suitable planet…

"Doctor Baltar," he said, looking critically at the former scientist as he walked into the cell, "can I just ask why you did this?"

"What?" Baltar asked, looking at the Doctor with a smile. "Are you admitting that you don't understand something?"

"Only an idiot ever thinks that he knows everything," the Doctor countered firmly, enjoying the brief moment when Baltar's smirk faltered before the Time Lord continued. "And we both know I'm talking about that book you wrote."

"Oh, so someone _did_ read it," Baltar smiled. "Good to know my appeal to the common man is getting out-"

"I glanced over it," the Doctor interjected. "And frankly, I've read better."

"Such as?"

 _The problem with being this far in the past is that I can't name-drop anybody he'd find significant_ …

"To be blunt," the Doctor continued, deciding to focus on the practical details rather than make any comparisons Baltar wouldn't understand, "putting aside the fact that I find it more likely that you're trying to present yourself as a political prisoner so that everyone forgets that you're the main reason so many people in this fleet spent months on New Caprica under Cylon rule, I thought that your content was excessively bleak."

"Bleak?"

"Bleak," the Doctor nodded. "Everything you said about how the people must be feared if they won't be heard is a very negative way to look at politics and society, and that's before we get into all that material about the 'ruling class' of Roslin and the Adamas-"

"Feel free to sprout anything if you just want to disagree with the idea that your supporters-" the former president began.

"I disagree with your basic concept," the Doctor clarified. "To be frank, putting aside the fact that you were never interested in politics before the attacks and don't really have the background to make this kind of criticism, if you had any real interest in effecting change, you had the better part of a year to do anything about that when you were President, and from what I hear you were more concerned with your own comforts. As it currently stands, when I look at your book with past precedent in mind… personally, you just come across as whining about the fact that you're not in charge by pointing out how everyone else is flawed."

"And you don't agree?" Baltar asked. "We have been here for three years, and nothing has changed despite the fact that we had an actual election that Miss Roslin _lost_ -"

"I won't deny that you made some interesting points, but putting aside the fact that _everyone_ makes mistakes, your text needed to consider the broader issues instead of just criticising everyone," the Doctor countered, folding his arms as he studied the scientist. "For one thing, if you truly believe that this fleet is in a position where the Adamas and Roslins are going to develop a royalty status, firstly, I'd like to ask who you think could genuinely do better at keeping this fleet alive than what they're doing right now, and secondly, would you prefer to be in this fleet long enough for that to be an issue or find somewhere to settle down that actually works as a long-term habitat that lets you explore alternatives?"

Baltar simply stared at the Doctor in silence, but the Doctor liked to think that Baltar's lack of response showed that the other man was thinking about his point.

"And on that topic," the Time Lord added, "did you ever even consider that what you were writing about could lead to your death?"

"Because the Adamas won't like it-?" Baltar began, seemingly regaining his confidence.

"Because if we end up being caught by a Cylon fleet in this state, we can't get away because everyone's so caught up in trying to improve the situation you've thrown in their faces that the ships are damaged," the Doctor clarified. "Were you even aware that you've caused a strike in the ship that provides fuel to most of this fleet, or did you just want to stir up a hornet's nest?"

"What?" Baltar asked, looking at the Doctor with a trace of apprehension that confirmed the Time Lord's theory.

The Doctor knew that people often accused him of being arrogant, particularly in his sixth incarnation, but he liked to think that even he had never been so arrogant that he missed the wider implications of his words when talking to those he met in his travels (He would freely admit that some of him were better with people than others, but that was a different kind of ignorance).

"And that proves my point," he nodded at Baltar, allowing himself a brief smile at this confirmation of his theory. "You inspired trouble in the fleet for no other reason than to make a name for yourself, regardless of the fact that doing so put yourself in danger as much as everyone else, because your first thought concerns how to make yourself a public figure rather than to help people even if they won't know it's you."

"I have helped-!"

"I never said you hadn't helped; you just haven't helped for the sake of it," the Doctor clarified. "Right now, if you were legitimately interested in making social reform, I'd be one of your first supporters, but I think we both know that you're anything but the man for the job. In the time that I've been working with the admiral and the president, I have come to the conclusion that they are good people dealing with an impossibly difficult situation, whereas you are one of the most self-centred and egotistical people I have ever met, believing that you deserve special treatment because you're you, and the only reason you're not as dangerous as some of the people I've known who had those same issues is that you're not as smart as you think you are."

"And you believe you're smarter?"

"I could hardly be more stupid," the Doctor countered. "I've known revolutionaries who take on the role for various reasons, and you are not a revolutionary; you're just a man complaining about the fact that he isn't the biggest man on the metaphorical campus any more because it's the only way people will see you."

"Everything in that book happens to be true-"

"And your confession about your farming background is touching, but overcoming harsh backgrounds is only commendable if you do it for the right reasons," the Doctor countered. "I mean, I was a lord and heir to my family estates before I became a doctor but I don't bring up my title to get my own way; I'm only even doing it now to make a point."

"What point?" Baltar asked, looking curiously at the Doctor despite himself.

"That my family were content to sit around on their estate and be respected for their past deeds, while I chose to get out and do something rather than sit around and stay somewhere out of the way," the Doctor finished (He would have gone into more detail, but quite frankly he wouldn't have trusted Baltar with his coat, much less the truth about his origin).

"And thank you for affirming my point," Baltar smiled. "In the end, whatever you say about what you're doing now, all the aristocracy wants is for the working class to feel looked after while they scrabble for table scraps-"

"Which would be far more meaningful if you hadn't made that kind of approach the cornerstone or your presidential campaign…" the Doctor began, before his eyes narrowed curiously. "And what are you?"

"What am-?" Baltar began.

"Not you; _her_ ," the Doctor said, indicating the extremely fair-haired woman in a tight black dress who'd suddenly appeared in the cell.

" _What_?" Baltar said, his original laconic manner forgotten as he looked incredulously at the Doctor. "You- you can _see_ her?"

"You are aware of me?" the woman said, recognisable as the Cylon the Colonials had identified as the sixth model as she turned to look at the Doctor.

"Oh, I see you well enough; I just don't _know_ you yet…" the Doctor said, shaking his head as he studied the new arrival. "Would you care to explain where you fit into this?"

"She… she said she was an angel-" Baltar began.

"And I'm sure you were very grateful for that proof that you're important, but I would prefer to hear the truth right now," the Doctor said, his attention focused on the woman who was now looking at him with a discomfort that Baltar clearly wasn't used to seeing from this stranger. "I will ask again; who are you?"

"…I am the Azure Guardian," the woman said, looking at the Doctor in a quizzical manner.


	14. The Guardians of the Fleet

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

A New Angel, a New Fate

"The… Azure Guardian?" Baltar repeated, looking at the woman he'd come to consider his personal guide in confusion as she looked at the Doctor. "What does that mean?"

"It means," the Doctor said, still studying the strange woman intently, "that this woman is intended to represent the very concept of balance and equilibrium in the universe as a whole, and ensure that things come to pass in a manner that justifies her stability… which leaves me wondering what she's doing talking to you of all people."

"She said that I… had a destiny…" Baltar began.

"Which you naturally lapped up, being the egomaniac that you are," the Doctor cut the former president off, his gaze fixed on the woman identified as the Azure Guardian. "You know who I am, I presume?"

"Fully," the woman smiled at him. "My compatriots speak of you a great deal."

"I suspected as much," the Doctor said grimly. "Can we talk about this somewhere more… private?"

"Of course," the woman said, reaching out to tap Baltar on the head, sending him to the ground unconscious, before she took the Doctor's arm. In a moment, the Doctor found himself standing in his room, Fitz and Compassion looking at him in shock.

"What the-?" Fitz began.

"Who is _that_?" Compassion asked, glaring at the Azure Guardian. "She looks like that sixth Cylon, but…"

"How can you-?"

" _That_ is not important," the Doctor said, moving to stand between the Azure Guardian and his companion with a firm glare. "What _is_ important is that you've been talking to Baltar, and I have reason to believe that there is more going on than you just dropping in on him recently, so you _will_ make yourself visible to Fitz and then I want to know what you're trying to accomplish and how it fits in with your status."

"Who are you talk-?" Fitz began, before jumping in surprise as the woman obviously became visible to him. "Who the _Hell_ is that?"

"She's the Azure Guardian of Equilibrium," the Doctor explained.

"The what what of what?"

"The Guardians are six entities that serve as the personifications of some of the fundamental forces of the universe," the Doctor explained, gaze still fixed on the woman before him. "I've encountered the Black and White Guardians of Chaos and Order on a few occasions a few lives ago, and the Crystal Guardian of Dreams was one of the first opponents I ever faced, but I had only heard of the other three before now…"

"And we would have preferred that it remain that way," the woman said. "No offence intended, Doctor, but you can be a very… volatile element in any situation."

"None taken," the Doctor replied coolly, before his eyes narrowed in a pointed stare. "And on that topic, can you clarify what you're actually doing here? How does any of this achieve any kind of 'balance'?"

"It's not just me, Doctor," the woman said. "The Gold Guardian is also involved in these events."

"Gold?"

"The Guardian of Life," the Doctor answered for Fitz before turning back to the woman. "And that doesn't answer my main question; what does any of this have to do with the universal balance?"

"My own purpose is served by bringing humanity's population at this time down to a more manageable level and relocating them to fulfil their future destiny at a more suitable time," the woman said. "The Gold Guardian's purpose is served by doing his best to limit further death after the initial attack on the Twelve Colonies-"

"And I can assume that he's spending his time talking to one of the Cylons?"

"Correct," the woman replied. "The Gold Guardian appears to a key Cylon leader, and through her, he advises the Cylons to consider other methods of…"

"He encourages them to feel bad about what they did, I assume?" the Doctor asked with a pointed glare. "A laudable goal in principle, but I would have thought that he would better serve his purpose by preventing all that destruction in the first place…"

"History has rules that even we must adhere to, Doctor," the Guardian said firmly. "It was calculated that the current survivors are at a tolerable number for Earth's future role to be sustainable-"

"Hold on; if this other Guardian's talking to the Cylons, does that mean this… woman was talking to someone in the Fleet?" Fitz asked, looking uncertainly between the Doctor and the woman.

"She's been talking to Doctor Baltar," the Doctor clarified, before focusing back on the woman. "Which raises another question; why him? I appreciate that this population took a knock when the colonies were destroyed, but there are still around forty thousand people left in this fleet; if you had to talk to anybody, why focus on an egomaniac scientist who isn't as smart as he thinks he is?"

Even as he stared at the woman waiting for a response, the Doctor tilted his head back in understanding. "Of _course_ … he was smart and significant enough to be sure that everyone would listen to him when you had something meaningful for him to say, but at the same time was personally stupid enough that he wouldn't question anything you asked him to do so long as you made him feel important?"

"As fair an assessment as any, Doctor," the woman nodded at him with a grim smile.

"And the Guardian of Life talks with the Cylons to stop anyone else dying off in this grand experiment?"

"Precisely," the woman smiled. "Our contact at that end was fundamentally more… reasonable; where I have to encourage Doctor Baltar to play along by focusing on the risks he faces, all my associate has to do is convince his contact to encourage leniency against the humans so that numbers don't fall further than we can control-"

"Further than you can control?" the Doctor repeated, his eyes narrowing with a cold glare. "Are you even aware that you are talking about human _lives_ here?"

"And Cylon lives-"

"They can resurrect; nobody's actually _died_ on their side of this mess yet!" Fitz cut in, glaring at the woman. "What the hell are you doing that makes it worth killing all these people?"

"Ensuring your future, Fitz Kriener," the woman smiled.

"What?" Fitz looked at her incredulously, before his expression shifted to uncertain confusion. "This is all because of… we're talking about Earth, right?"

"Indeed," the Azure Guardian nodded. "Humanity's history on Earth is of great benefit to the universe; allowing humanity to spread from the Colonies would put that position at risk."

"You're doing all this to get humanity to Earth?" the Doctor asked, looking at the woman in surprise. "This is a very… I appreciate that you can't act directly in this universe if your black and white compatriots set a precedent, but this is a very convoluted way to go about that, surely?"

"It works," the woman smiled.

"But killing off twelve colonies' worth of people because they were born in the wrong solar system?" Compassion asked.

"It's not just that," the Doctor noted grimly. "A humanity born of the twelve colonies of Kobol spreading out into the wider universe at this time would upset the balance of the wider universe in more ways than one, correct?"

"Upset the balance?" Fitz asked.

"We _are_ fairly far in the past at this point, Fitz," the Doctor smiled solemnly over at his friend. "The Colonials might be fairly primitive by the standards of some of the societies we've encountered in our travels, but at this point in the universe's history, with so few other space-faring races, they could be a significant but dangerous force in the wider universe if they decided to… turn their attention to others?"

"That's a bit cynical of you, isn't it, Doctor?" Compassion asked.

"I'm fond of humanity, Compassion; that doesn't mean I'm blind to their faults."

"So… you Guardians did this to stop the human race becoming too big too quickly?"

"A fair enough assessment of our actions," the Azure Guardian nodded at Fitz. "Balance must be maintained."

" _Balance_ …" the Doctor said, shaking his head in frustration before he sighed and stared at the Guardian. "I appreciate that I cannot exactly _stop_ you doing anything that you want to do at this point, and I obviously cannot have any impact on what you have done so far, but if you could possibly limit your future manipulation of Baltar and the Cylons and let the Colonials handle their _own_ problems from here on in, that would be… appreciated."

"And why should we do that?"

"Because I'm here to get this fleet to Earth."

"Even when you don't know-?"

"I don't know where Earth is in relation to our present location _now_ ," the Doctor corrected her. "However, I _can_ be sure that I'll get them to safety without playing with their minds any more than is absolutely necessary, and I certainly won't do it using your methods."

"You think you can do this?"

"If you know anything about me, you'll know that I take questions of that nature as a challenge," the Doctor countered. "In any case, can I assume Baltar won't remember our little moment down there?"

"He won't tell anyone about it, certainly," the woman smiled, before she vanished once again, leaving the Doctor and his companions looking uncertainly at each other.

"So… basically, we just told one of a couple of gods not to get further involved in things in this fleet because we're going to get these guys to Earth on their own?" Fitz asked uncertainly. "Is that _really_ a good idea?"

"These people are down to less than forty thousand people from a population that once spanned twelve worlds; I hardly think we can do any worse than the Guardians, especially if we assume they were responsible for such developments as our last little stand-off above the algae planet," the Doctor said bluntly. "The Guardians might be powerful, but they aren't _meant_ to do anything on their own; the problem with entities operating on such a high level is that, when they get the chance to act on this level, even the better ones end up losing any real sight of the implications of their actions on this level of existence."

"Like… if we were trying to direct ants?"

"The analogy is unfair, but you're on the right lines, certainly," the Doctor nodded. "In any case, knowing that the Guardians are involved changes a few things, but hopefully Baltar should be less involved to take any more drastic action if his associate agrees to leave him alone."

"You think she will?"

"If you or I can keep an eye on his cell we can make sure of it, anyway," the Doctor clarified. "The Guardians might be able to hide from human perception, but you and I operate on… well, a different level than the average person, anyway."

"Advantages to being a higher dimensional entity, I suppose," Compassion mused. "What about the current social shift inspired by that book of his?"

"I'll need to talk with Bill and Laura about that; hopefully, they should have _something_ to offer by now…"

* * *

"Rotating shifts on various ships?" the Doctor noted, looking at Roslin and Adama with a smile. "Interesting system."

"I'm not going to lie and say we didn't have some… teething troubles… getting to this point, but we're not going to ignore valid concerns once they're seriously brought to our attention just because we don't like the source, Doctor," Roslin noted, looking at him with a slight smile. "Doctor Baltar might be a complete frak-up, but we aren't going to solve the problems he brought up by pretending they don't exist; contrary to what he claims, we don't want to build a hierarchy where jobs are inherited with no opportunity for expansion."

"And I congratulate you for that decision," the Doctor smiled at the president before his smile faltered. "I just wish it hadn't had to reach this point before we did something about it…"

"This whole situation's a frak-up, Doctor," Adama noted. "We were hardly prepared to be left in this position when the Cylons attacked, and since then we've been more caught up in the bigger priorities of just surviving the Cylon attacks; these last few months are probably the longest period we've had without encountering Cylon ships when we didn't have a planet to go to for a break."

"Ah, cabin fever; always a problem, regardless of the scale of the cabin you have to work with," the Doctor smiled. "Still, I give you credit for trying to take action when the problem was brought to your attention; too many people would have just kept on using the extreme situation to justify extreme measures."

"Contrary to what Tom Zarek would like to convince people, I am a full supporter of the democratic process, Doctor," the president said firmly. "My assumption of the post was… unconventional, certainly, but…"

"Say no more; as the man who was forced into the position twice, I can sympathise," the Doctor smiled.

"You were a president?" Roslin looked at him in surprise.

"It was given to me back on my home world after I exposed the previous candidates as corrupt; I never set out to aspire to the role myself, and got out of the position as soon as I could," the Doctor said firmly. "The point is that I understand better than most the temptations and the challenges of power, as well as the difference between taking it when you have to and holding it when you shouldn't, but I also appreciate how people can assume the position when circumstances require it without seeking it themselves, and from what I've seen, you've done as well as anyone I can imagine would when dealing with this situation."

"If only we all had that luxury," Roslin said, smiling sympathetically at him before her expression became more solemn. "If only I could be sure that this was the last we were going to hear of Doctor Baltar's efforts to build himself up…"

"Oh," the Doctor smiled, "I have a feeling that Doctor Baltar is going to be a _bit_ quieter in the future…"

The man might have written some interesting books even before he became the new 'pawn' of the Azure Guardian, but the Doctor had a feeling that he'd start to slow down once he lost the Guardian's influence. The scientist had an ego on the level of Davros and the Master, but he was handicapped by the fact that he wasn't as smart as he thought he was, even if he was still more knowledgeable than some of the people around him; he understood facts easily enough, but his ability to put them into practise for any reason other than to save his own life on his own was very limited.

Baltar hadn't shown an interest in politics before, so the Doctor had to assume that most of his political aspirations since the destruction of the Colonies had been prompted by the Azure Guardian; assuming that she and the Gold Guardian agreed with his ultimatum, the only question now was what Baltar would do without his 'guiding angel', particularly with his trial coming up in a few weeks…

* * *

 _You believe he can do it?_

 _The Time Lord has shown a remarkable aptitude for outmanoeuvring higher powers in the past… to say nothing of his own skills in situations such as these._

 _But to abandon them all after this long…_

 _He made one clear point; at this stage, leaving them alone may be the best solution to avoid exacerbating the situation._

 _But his methods often lead to more death before things are resolved; how long do we give him to get the job done?_

 _I said that we should let him handle the fleets the way he wishes; that does not mean that we should do nothing to ensure that he receives some key insight on where to go next…_

* * *

"It's… intriguing, really."

"What is?" the Doctor looked curiously at Compassion, his three companions sitting around their room.

"Seeing how far the president will go because… well, because she wants to," Compassion explained. "I mean, she might have only started it because Baltar's book brought the issues to her attention, but at the same time, so many people would have been willing to simply leave it all alone and pass the blame on to someone else."

"That's what I like about humanity," the Doctor smiled at Compassion. "They might make mistakes as a whole, but get the right individuals in the right place at the right time, and they can surprise you."

"Even if you don't like how they do it?"

"Sometimes especially because you don't like how they do it," the Doctor nodded at Fitz. "This is about the military control issue, I take it?"

"Just… kind of surprised you were so laid-back about that whole mess," his friend noted. "I get that they need their fighters, but you always made it clear that you don't like soldiers-"

"Which is why I had to stay out of this issue," the Doctor clarified. "The deck crews certainly need better care taken in their situation, but at the same time the fleet needs to know that their equipment will be properly maintained. After all, it's not like these people can just request reassignment to another ship if they don't like the workload; all they have is _Galactica_ and the rest of the fleet, so they need to learn to overcome their differences on their own."

"Let humanity make its own mistakes?" Compassion asked. "A dangerous time to attempt something like that, surely?"

"Forcing your view on a situation is never going to improve it," the Doctor replied solemnly, before glancing over at Fitz. "And speaking of views on the situations, what's troubling you?"

"It's just…" Fitz sighed. "I mean, I get that this Baltar guy's an egotistical prick, but he went to all that effort to hide his past… didn't I do the same?"

"Fitz Fortune was an alias you used to escape violent prejudice against your father's name that you _knew_ you'd have to deal with after the war," the Doctor said firmly. "Gaius Baltar hid everything about his background because he was ashamed of it and thought other people would think less of him as a result; the reasoning is the same superficially, but the fine details are completely different."

"…Thanks," Fitz smiled at the Doctor.

"Right," the Doctor nodded at Fitz, before he stood up and clapped his hands together with a casual smile. "Well then, shall we focus on where this fleet is going to go next?"


	15. The Destiny of Kara Thrace

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

AN: Hope this chapter works; it was surprisingly tricky to get it right, but I knew from the start that I wanted to change what Kara went through in canon…

A New Angel, a New Fate

The trouble with being stuck in a warship that was on an active war footing, albeit one of the most unconventional war footings the Doctor had ever encountered in all his lives, was that there was only so much time he could spend with each individual soldier even if he wanted to. Unlike with UNIT, where his status as an alien had been essentially an open secret among the staff, nobody outside the senior staff had any reason to think of him as anything more than a brilliant scientist with an eccentric dress sense who'd remained under the radar for the first part of this journey, and he couldn't spend too much time with those members of the crew who knew the truth without attracting too much attention. As it currently stood, he was developing a reputation as a man to talk to when dealing with a various technical problems, but so far he'd managed to avoid attracting too many questions about his past.

 _It's a complicated balance; do enough to get these people to safety, but not so much that I expose what I am before they're ready to learn it_.

He wasn't sure if these people would have made it to Earth or not without his involvement, but with the discovery that the Azure and Gold Guardians had been involved in this mess, he was having to re-evaluate the scale of what he was dealing with. He at least had some hope that their key goal had been to save lives rather than just destroy everything, so he knew that he wasn't setting himself an impossible task, but there was a lot of space to cross between here and wherever Earth was.

 _The jump-drive gives me options if I can identify the right coordinates, particularly if I've correctly estimated its limitations, but that doesn't help if I don't know where I am_ now _…_

"…Doctor?"

"Yes?" the Doctor asked, breaking out of his train of thought and turning to look at Kara Thrace, who was looking particularly fatigued even given the strained circumstances they were dealing with at the moment. "Can I help you?"

"I… I don't know," Kara said, shaking her head awkwardly. "I just… things lately…"

"Bad dreams?" the Doctor looked curiously at the young woman.

"That's not the word for it," Kara replied, the two sitting in silence for a moment before she spoke again. "I just… ever since we left that algae planet, I've…"

"Trouble sleeping?"

"How do you even do that?"

"I've been around for a long time, Captain Thrace; I know what makes people tick and when they're not at their best," the Doctor explained. "What is it; just generally restless, or is there a specific problem?"

"Bad dreams," Kara said grimly, after studying him thoughtfully for a moment. "Helo's suggested a psychiatrist or an oracle, but I'm not sure…"

"What are they?" the Doctor asked, looking curiously at Kara. "The dreams, I mean?"

"You asking for personal or professional reasons?"

"Semi-professional; consider me a gifted amateur."

"You qualified for this?"

"I've seen a great deal in my life," the Doctor smiled at Kara. "If I'm not officially qualified through some form of degree, I'm certainly _un_ officially qualified due to experience; care to join me in my office?"

His words might be an exaggeration of his skills, but with two Guardians already involved in this, the Doctor would be very surprised if whatever was troubling Kara wasn't connected to their wider plan. As Kara walked into his unofficial lab, she glanced sceptically around at the various equipment the Doctor had assembled over his time in the fleet, ranging from a couple of computers scanning the constantly updating stellar maps of the area to the remnants of Baltar's chemistry equipment.

"Interesting mix," she noted.

"I get by," the Doctor shrugged, moving to sit at the desk in the middle of the room, indicating a chair on the other side. "Sit down, please."

"OK…" Kara said, looking uncertainly at the man in the velvet jacket even as she followed his cue. "So… how's this going to work? You listen while I just… talk it out?"

"Let's keep it simple to start with, certainly," the Doctor nodded at the young woman. "What can you tell me about the dreams?"

"Mostly… about my mother."

"Your mother?"

"Mostly… about how I didn't measure up," Kara sighed. "I mean, there's also some frak about Leoben telling me that I have a destiny, but-"

"Let's… leave that issue alone for the moment," the Doctor said, holding up a hand as he looked reassuringly at the viper pilot. "What about your mother?"

"It's… well, it's about our last meeting," Kara said, after a moment's solemn silence as she stared at her hands. "She'd always had this fixation with me being special, but in our last talk after I graduated officer training, she accused me of being a quitter because I didn't work on my personal issues."

"You mean your rebellious streak?"

"Graduated sixteenth in my class despite my skills in the cockpit because of it," Kara shrugged. "I was in a class of over a hundred cadets, and as far as she was concerned, I should have been first…"

"There was something else to it, wasn't there?"

"She… died after that last talk," Kara admitted. "I'd found out she had cancer, and all she could do was criticise me for trying to show sympathy and tell me that I should find someone else to motivate me because I wouldn't have her to do it any more…"

"Parents," the Doctor smiled sympathetically at Kara. "They're never easy, and it's worse when they have expectations of you."

"Been there?"

"Of a sort," the Doctor shrugged; he didn't often share this much information about his own background, but Kara seemed so down and uncertain of herself right now that it seemed appropriate to do so. "The head of my family always believed that I was destined to become president of my people, but I never had any real interest in politics; I got my doctorate easily enough, but I only passed my final qualifying exams to become a member of my peoples' elite with the bare minimum needed to satisfy his desires for me."

"Concede to parental demands without giving into them completely, huh?" Kara smiled at him. "Always a pleasure to meet a fellow rebel."

"We make life interesting," the Doctor grinned, before he looked more solemnly at her. "The point is, no parent should have the right to make demands of their children just because they believe they know what we should do with our lives. You did the best you could, and that should be enough; you can't keep lashing out at others because you're still struggling with your mother's expectations."

"Think that's where she comes into it?"

"As good an explanation as any," the Doctor nodded (privately, he suspected that something was using the image of Kara's mother as a useful means of communicating with her right now, but he doubted she was ready to hear something like that).

"And… what about Leoben?" Kara asked, sounding surprisingly timid as she looked at the Doctor.

"Leoben? That's… Cylon model Number Two, correct?"

"He was in the dream too; said all this stuff about how I'm afraid of diving into the unknown and the edge, but… there's also mom…"

"Fear of the unknown is nothing to be ashamed of. I may like to think of myself as an explorer, but there are some places where I recognise that I shouldn't probe too far too quickly. Death is what gives our lives meaning, but you shouldn't go looking for it either…"

He paused and looked at her with a more thoughtful expression for a moment, before he nodded in resolution. "I think we need to take a closer look at this."

"Closer look?" Kara repeated uncertainly. "We're talking about my head issues, Doc-"

"Firstly, don't call me 'Doc'," the Doctor corrected Kara, holding up a firm finger before he gave her a warmer smile as he raised his hands so that they were on either side of Kara's head. "And secondly, I have other methods; if you just sit where you are, I'll do the rest."

"What?" Kara blinked.

"It's a… technique from back home," the Doctor explained; he appreciated that the senior staff knew that he wasn't quite human and trusted him nevertheless, but he didn't want to advertise some of his more subtle abilities in case they started worrying about what else he could do. "Just sit down in front of me, relax yourself, and I'll… see what I can do."

"Hypnosis?"

"Something like that," the Doctor shrugged, not wanting to explain this in greater depth. "I won't do anything… invasive, I can assure you; I just have a few theories I want to test, and it's best if you're… not fully conscious of them at the time."

"You're not going to do anything… weird, right?" Kara asked, the teasing tone in her voice at odds with the fear that the Doctor could only see because he was looking her directly in the eyes.

"I will do _nothing_ to you, Kara Thrace, beyond find your problem and help your subconscious reach a state where it can be accepted," the Time Lord replied solemnly, hoping that his current incarnation's natural sincerity would make it easier for her to accept him at his word despite the lack of detail he could share with her. "Just relax… open your mind… and listen to my words…"

As Kara's mind began to relax under his words, the Doctor tentatively stretched out his mental senses, carefully feeling his way around the young woman's psyche, greatly appreciating the easier nature of this 'intrusion' compared to his last couple of attempts; the Beast had been relatively peaceful once he found the right dimensional phase to talk to them on, but that experience with the Waro had been very complicated…

He wasn't sure what he was expecting to find at first, but he took care to probe his way through the Viper pilot's memories without drawing too much attention to his presence. He tried to skim over the finer details of her past, but he still winced when he felt her mother slam a door on Kara's fingers. Behind all of Kara's tough attitude and incredible flying skills was a damaged woman whose mother had made her suffer for the sake of some nebulous future destiny that nobody was sure about, and behind that, there was something… something reaching out to her with the image of Leoben Conroy… something that was reaching for her… something that would draw her to them and make her their agent… something that…

 _ **You**_ , the Doctor said, reaching above and around Kara's mind to address the source of this signal directly. _I thought we agreed you wouldn't do this kind of thing any more?_

 _There is no harm in providing some… assistance, surely?_

 _Providing the right person with assistance and insight into a specific crisis is one thing; this would involve taking someone away from her entire_ life _just to serve your own purpose._

 _Kara Thrace has a destiny-_

 _Nobody has a single destiny; it's one of the many things that inspired me to travel in the first place. Kara Thrace is a human being with a right to live her life without you interfering with it just because it's easier that way. If you have a clear message for her, give it to me and leave it at that; she deserves to be more than a pawn in whatever games you're playing._

 _You make many presumptions about your importance in the grand scheme of things, Doctor_.

 _I will not apologise for assuming that lives matter; Kara Thrace has been through too much to be discarded in such a manner._

 _We assured her that she would be safe-_

 _Her safety isn't what concerns me right now; she would still be deprived of her family and friends for nothing more than to help you pursue your own agenda. Tell me what you have to say to her, and then leave her in peace_.

There was a brief silence over the telepathic connection, and then the Doctor felt a strange sensation as information was 'imprinted' into his brain, providing him with a complex sequence of galactic coordinates.

 _I assume this is based on a galactic positioning system that_ I _would recognise rather than the Colonials_?

 _It is._

 _I see… I'll need to make sure how far we have to go between here and there, of course, but-_

 _We would caution patience._

 _I would take that personally, but considering the way things stand, I will assume you don't wish to anger me further at this time, so why should I wait?_

 _You may wish to examine the destination yourself rather than dive in to provide them with these coordinates immediately. What you will discover there will give you some answers about the wider picture, but only once you are approached by the Four of Five_.

 _What_?

The Doctor lost the telepathic connection before he could try and probe it for any further answers, but at least he felt like he'd accomplished something with this particular effort. Releasing his fingers from Kara's head, the Time Lord smiled as the young pilot shook her head, looking at him in confusion.

"Uh… what just happened?" she asked uncertainly.

"We… had a talk," the Doctor shrugged.

"A talk?"

"You don't remember most of it because of the hypnosis; I had to put you under to ensure that I reached the part of your mind that was most troubled and essentially help you accept it on a subconscious as well as a conscious level," the Doctor explained, hoping that she wouldn't probe the issue any further than what he was willing to share. "I would recommend that you take a little time off to be sure you've got your head back together, but other than that, I think you'll be all right."

"Right…" Kara said, looking uncertainly at him for a moment before smiling uncertainly. "Th… thanks?"

"Give it a day or two to be sure it stuck, and then thank me," the Doctor told her. "It's a bit too early to say anything else for certain, but… I think what I did should help."

For a moment, the Time Lord considered telling Kara more about what he'd discovered, but swiftly decided against it. Religion was still an area of the Colonials' lives he'd tried not to approach in detail so far, and he didn't want to risk rocking that particular boat by discussing higher powers influencing their journey when even he didn't know the full story yet.

 _And who were that 'Four of Five' they mentioned_?

He had an idea or two, but it was still frustrating to have to form a new evaluation of a situation that he was still struggling to understand; there was only so much he could do right now…

 _Maybe this is one time I should have adhered to official policy and stayed out of things_.


	16. Trial Preparations

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

AN: Hope this chapter works; considering that a key catalyst for events around this time was Kara being dead (or whatever happened to her), it's surprisingly harder to work out how to tweak events without causing too great a shift at this time (although I can assure you that bigger changes are planned once we get to Season Four).

A New Angel, a New Fate

"The Four of Five?" Fitz looked at the Doctor in confusion. "What's that about?"

"I'm still working that out myself, actually," the Doctor replied. "The obvious assumption is that it relates to those 'Final Five' Cylons that even the seven we know of don't know about, but that doesn't explain why I should only expect _four_ of them to show themselves, or why they'd do it now rather than earlier."

"Maybe they're the missing link in those questions you brought up earlier?" Compassion asked.

"Missing link?" Fitz repeated, before snapping his fingers in recollection. "Oh yeah; all that stuff you said about the Cylons' design not making any sense?"

"It's a possibility," the Doctor nodded at his friend. "We still don't know why whoever designed the Cylons apparently decided to change tactics like that; maybe the Final Five aren't 'final' in the sense that they were the last ones made, but in the sense that they're somehow distinct from the other seven? Actually, if they were built earlier, that might even explain why Sharon and the others don't know anything about them; whoever designed the seven might have been able to erase the data that related to the identity of the Final Five from the core programming even if they couldn't erase the knowledge of their existence…"

"Why do that?" Compassion asked. "Wouldn't it have made more sense to erase all knowledge of the Final Five completely?"

"When something's lost, it can be reconstructed based on the gap it leaves behind if the subject is intelligent enough," the Doctor clarified. "Erasing the Five completely could have been problematic, as whoever did it might have had doubts about their ability to program the other Cylons to that extent, but erasing the data about who they are while leaving the knowledge that they existed and shouldn't be discussed could be enough."

"Talking of problematic situations," Fitz noted, looking over at the Doctor, "what do you think about all this stuff we've been hearing about Baltar's trial?"

"I'm trying to stay out of that, really."

"Really?" Compassion noted. "After everything that man's done-"

"Everything he's _apparently_ done," the Doctor corrected. "I don't deny that the evidence strongly favours the idea that he's guilty of potential Cylon collaboration, but nobody's definitively seen him doing anything with any known Cylon agents before the colonies were destroyed. Even if I doubt that I'm the only one who didn't approve of what he did when he was president of New Caprica, there could be an argument that he only worked with the Cylons because he might have been able to mitigate the potential damage they might have done if they'd just taken over completely."

"Based on what we've heard, that hardly seems like a good reason," Compassion noted. "Quite frankly, it seems as though he basically capitulated as soon as the Cylons showed up and let them do whatever they wanted to any humans who objected to the Cylons' presence."

"I never said _I_ thought it was a good reason; I'm just noting what his defence counsel might argue," the Doctor clarified. "As I said, this whole situation is complicated, but it's fundamentally an internal matter for these people, and that's before I factor in the importance of them defining their own legal system in the aftermath of a major catastrophe on this scale."

"They… oh, right; that whole thing about each colony having their own rules, right?" Fitz asked. "They haven't sorted that out yet?"

"Human nature, Fitz; how often do people in a crisis respond pre-emptively to a problem that might come up?" Compassion pointed out. "You always just react to everything; you never anticipate a threat or a complication on this scale until you're already facing it."

"And, as there hasn't been any real need for a trial on this scale since the colonies were destroyed, they haven't worked out the issues of their old legal system yet," the Doctor concluded.

"They had issues?" Fitz asked. "I thought they had a unified government?"

"But each individual colony was basically expected to deal with criminal proceedings on their own planets with their own laws," the Doctor clarified.

"Which… doesn't really work now, for obvious reasons."

"Quite. Still, we have to give them credit for actually trying to sort out a trial, rather than just succumbing to peer pressure and throwing Baltar out the nearest airlock."

"And they're using a five-judge system that seems as impartial as they're going to get at this point," Compassion noted.

"Five-judge system?" Fitz asked. "I just heard there was something about them getting a new defence guy for Baltar after the last guy got blown up?"

"The issue of the judges had been sorted out earlier; they just need the lawyers for the key part of the case."

"Should we consider ourselves fortunate that these terrorists just want to ensure Gaius Baltar loses?" Compassion noted. "From what I've seen of human history back on Earth, some terrorists just don't care about the collateral damage so long as they make their point; there's been no record of these ones trying anything larger than what's necessary to damage the area where their target's going to be."

"Whether these are 'good' terrorists doesn't change the fact that capitulating to their demands at this time wouldn't set a good precedent," the Doctor noted. "I appreciate that this trial is making everything complicated, but at least the Colonials are allocating responsibility in an appropriate manner. From what I've heard, without naming names, some of the more religious colonies may have required Baltar to walk across fiery coals or something similar to prove whether he had been judged by the gods."

"Seriously?"

"Religion is _very_ important to these people, Fitz; don't let the fact that they created a massive space-fleet before the Cylons destroyed it make you think that they're not superstitious."

"Point," Fitz noted. "Guess we got lucky that not many people on this ship make that big a thing about religion and where we fit into it… which reminds me, how's Starbuck?"

"Chafing from my recommended 'quarantine', but she understands why I did it," the Doctor confirmed. "Until I'm sure that whatever was trying to get in touch with her isn't going to do it again, I'd prefer it if she didn't leave this ship in case it lures her in; anything powerful enough to do that to her isn't going to abandon its plans too quickly, no matter what argument I try to present."

"I can get the admiral accepting it, but how did she even sell it to everyone else?"

"The advantage of too many terrorist attacks; once I explained my fears to Bill, it wasn't that difficult to make it look like she got caught in the crossfire of the next attack and have Cottle order her grounded until he can be sure she's well," the Doctor smiled. "She protests, of course, but she doesn't _want_ to leave anyone here, which certainly helps her go along with it."

"The fact that we haven't been attacked for a while probably also helps with that one."

"Quite," the Doctor nodded with a grim expression as he reflected on the pilot's current situation. Starbuck's husband Anders had questioned why she was accepting being grounded when he'd heard stories about her trying to fly even after sustaining a damaged knee that kept her officially grounded for the next month, but as there was no reason for her to lie about staying off, he had eventually accepted the explanation even if he still seemed suspicious. "So long as she stays out of a Viper, I think we'll be all right where Kara's concerned, which gives us time to focus on the trial."

* * *

"You put your son in charge of the defence counsel's security?" the Doctor looked at Adama in surprise as he sat with Roslin in the admiral's quarters. "Not that I doubt Major Adama's abilities, but at this point, isn't that basically the most dangerous position in the entire fleet?"

"Which is why I gave it to the member of this fleet I trust most," the admiral said solemnly.

"Believe me, Doctor, we aren't comfortable with this situation any more than you are," Roslin noted. "After everything that man's done-"

"I feel I should clarify my stance at this point, Madame President," the Doctor cut her off, holding up one hand. "I agree that the evidence against Baltar is compelling, but I've been in situations where the evidence against _me_ for having committed certain crimes was almost equally compelling, and it turned out that my friends and I were being framed to cover up other peoples' mistakes or just been a victim of very unfortunate timing and circumstances. I'm not saying that I think anyone here would fake evidence against Baltar if none existed, but I'm just pointing out that the case isn't that clear-cut."

"Quite," Adama said, Roslin just staring silently at the Doctor from the other side. "In any case, the new lawyer, Romo Lampkin, may have freely admitted that he's only taking the case for the fame of it, but in the end he's the best qualified candidate for the role available and willing to take it on; we can hardly afford to complain about our choices."

"I sympathise," the Doctor nodded, before shooting them a brief smile. "Of course, you might be helped by the fact that Baltar is… going to be losing himself, shall we say?"

"In what way?" Roslin looked curiously at the Doctor.

"Let's just say that I have reason to believe that Doctor Baltar is going to be losing his concentration when it comes to matters of his personal future," the Doctor smiled. "Your former president might consider himself to be smart, but he's only smart within a certain set of pre-established scenarios that are about to fail him if I'm correct in my understanding of his character."

"Does this have anything to do with that last meeting you had with him during that strike?"

"Among other things," the Doctor acknowledged. "As I said, Baltar's main flaw is that he's spent so long expecting that he'll be able to get away if anything goes wrong because he thinks he's smarter than everyone else."

"Which is no longer true," Roslin smiled.

"Well, I will admit I'm smarter than he is, but he's also made the classic mistake of confusing intellect with wisdom," the Doctor added. "He knew more in his chosen fields, but after so long being the expert in situations where he was invited to discuss that expertise, that view translates into a more straightforward inability to recognise that others can have useful insights or knowledge of a situation. Everything's worked out for him so far even when he was moved out of his original comfort zone, so he takes that as meaning that everything is _going_ to work out for him because he has some destiny or another."

"Gods, that old excuse," Roslin said, shaking her head in frustration. "If he isn't trying to publish his book just to draw attention to himself, he's talking about how everything that's happened to him must be part of his views of 'destiny'."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you looking for Earth based on prophecies?"

"Prophecies relating to the future of our entire people; I have accepted that evidence suggests that I am the dying leader of Pythia's scrolls, but I have not become fixated on the idea that they _must_ be all about me."

"Aside from our old disagreement about the Arrow of Apollo."

"Which was based around my interpretation of the prophecies as a whole leading me to make a unilateral decision; I would have been content not to make my reading of the prophecies public if circumstances had not demanded it."

"Maybe we can avoid getting into that kind of discussion?" the Doctor put in, looking between the two fleet leaders with a slightly anxious smile; records of that point in the fleet's history were short, but he'd done enough historical research to know when people were trying to hide mistakes. "Let's just focus on the trial for the moment unless something Earth-related becomes a key concern, shall we?"

The tone about that particular topic had been teasing so far, but he didn't want to risk it inspiring them to reflect on past bad feelings in the middle of this complicated trial; he knew from experience how easy it was to regress when faced with a difficult situation…

* * *

"There was a bomb on a raptor?" Adama said, looking incredulously between his son and Chief Tyrol as the two of them stood in front of the admiral's desk. "What were you even _doing_ there?"

"Romo Lampkin requested files from Colonial One-"

"And that required you to violate strict regulations?"

"The last time I checked, we were intending to give Doctor Baltar a legitimate trial, which means ensuring that his defence has all the necessary tools available to carry that out," Lee countered firmly. "The bomb was discovered during the standard pre-flight check, disarmed before it could be a problem, and the deck staff are already working on tracking down where those components came from."

"This was on my watch; I take full responsibility-" Tyrol began.

"Security for the trial is not your responsibility, Chief," Adama cut the other man off. "You have your own duties; looking for bombs and other such attempts is Major Adama's responsibility, and this does not change the fact that Lampkin was on a no-fly list until we had identified the source of that last bomb."

"I was doing the job," Lee said firmly.

"Your job is to build a nest around that man and protect his ass," Adama said firmly.

"Which I can't do the way you want me to do _and_ do my job at the same time," Lee countered. "The man might be an ass, but he made a point that if anyone wants to kill him they're going to find a way no matter what we do, so the best option is to do everything to give him the chance to carry out a fair trial."

As Adama stared back at his son, he forced himself to remember what the Doctor had mentioned earlier; in a situation like this, the best thing any of them could do was focus on maintaining the law and show the people that they could make new lives and rules rather than keep trying to adhere to the way things were.

Even with the Doctor's unexpected assistance, there was only so much any of them could do in such an impossible situation.

 _I just wish that didn't mean watching my son become like my father_.

He might have respected his father's ability to draw a line and stick to his principles, but when a man had worked with a crime syndicate, that was still a complicated issue however he tried to look at it…

* * *

"Actually, tracking the bomb was simple enough," the Doctor noted as he sat with Fitz and Compassion that evening.

"Is that because these nuts wanted to talk about what they'd done once it was over, or because they just don't have the resources to hide anything?"

"A bit of both," the Doctor nodded at the sentient TARDIS's words. "The only good thing about this mess we're in is that I was able to quell the idea that the Cylons were responsible for all this; the bombs were just too primitive for it."

"And it couldn't be some kind of double-bluff?" Fitz asked. "Y'know, they plant something lower-tech so we assume they're not the problem?"

"While I wouldn't put that past the Cylons, I doubt that they'd go to so much trouble to hide their presence while also using a more basic explosive than what they're capable of," the Doctor noted. "And believe me, I analysed everything that Chief Tyrol's team were able to salvage from the aftermath of the original explosion and the bomb that Major Adama discovered this time around; there was nothing in either bomb that I wouldn't expect from this fleet."

"At least that's something, right?" Fitz noted with a brief smile.

"To a point," the Doctor replied. "Dealing with an external threat is simple, but facing internal politics like this…"

He didn't finish his sentence, but Fitz and Compassion had been with the Doctor long enough to understand his concerns.

"There's no good solution to this mess, is there?" Compassion noted.

"Not so far," the Doctor mused solemnly. "We're staying ahead of the Time Lords this way, but that can only last for so long if this fleet doesn't find somewhere safe, and that's assuming they can evade the Cylons for good."

"And they're not the kind of robots you can feel comfortable blowing up."

"Exactly," the Doctor acknowledged Compassion's point. "Sharon alone proves that the Cylons can be more than just machines trying to destroy humanity out of some pointless vendetta, but she was subject to such exceptional circumstances that I can't exactly use those to get any other Cylons to make the same choice…"

"And there's the question of who's behind all those anomalies you've noticed," Fitz added. "I mean, if there is some big conspiracy behind all this, how are they going to react to us interrupting whatever plan they had going on?"

"Even assuming that we're interrupting anything when we have no idea what plan is the current final outcome," Compassion noted. "All we know is that Cylon reproduction doesn't fit with their plan to destroy the human race, which could mean many things, and none of them are encouraging."

The Doctor wished that he could offer a better answer to his companion's observation than what he had at the moment, which amounted to nothing.

He hadn't felt this lost for a solution to a crisis since he was exiled during his third incarnation, and at least then he'd had some idea of what to do even if his knowledge of how to repair his ship had been blocked.


	17. Final Trial Assessment

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

AN: For the record, when I discuss the Doctor's past as President of Gallifrey here, classic series fans should know that I'm referring to the events of the Fifth Doctor audio 'Time in Office'; the Doctor was called back to Gallifrey to help with restructuring the political process of the High Council after they discovered that Borusa's manipulations had done so much damage to Gallifreyan politics that the system couldn't cope without him, and everyone currently in the Council wasn't capable of doing their jobs as Borusa had only promoted the weak, so the Doctor had to take on the role for a while to get Gallifrey back to normal

AN 2: I thought about making this chapter longer, but I decided that the actual trial merited a chapter all on its own, so this just deals with the last couple of details for the Doctor to confront before everything kicks off in earnest

A New Angel, a New Fate

"He's staying on Baltar's defence team."

"And?" the Doctor looked curiously at Kara, as the two sat opposite each other in the battlestar's makeshift bar.

"Lee Adama is _defending_ Gaius frakking Baltar," Kara repeated. "This is easily the dumbest thing he's ever done!"

"Because he believes in the right to legal counsel?"

"Because some people don't frakking _deserve_ it!"

"Oh, I'm not denying that," the Doctor nodded. "It just comes down to whether you believe you have the right to judge them yourself."

"And why not?" Kara asked.

"Because it's a slippery slope from deciding that you have the right to judge one evil person on your own and then expanding to a point where you believe that only you can make such judgements about anyone and to hell with what anyone else might think," the Doctor replied, his tone suddenly solemn. "A friend of mine once helped me remember that I stand for the underdog, which helped me make the decision to abandon the position I held at the time as president of my own planet."

"Hold on; you were the _president_ of your _planet_?" Kara looked at the Doctor incredulously, only just remembering to keep her voice low despite her shock; they weren't in the most public part of the ship, but it was still possible that some passing marine could hear them. "And you gave that up?"

"You've seen what Compassion is, Lieutenant Thrace; she's a particularly exceptional case, but if my people have the technology able to create even a non-sentient object that reflects what she is capable of, can you imagine what else my people could accomplish if they put their minds to it?" the Doctor replied solemnly. "If I had accepted a position of authority back on my home world, I freely admit that I would have been tempted to use that power to encourage my people to help others, but in the end, benevolent dictatorship is still dictatorship; I couldn't take on that kind of authority and still do what I do with a clear conscience."

"OK…" Kara said, looking uncertainly at him for a time before she continued. "OK, I can get that you didn't want to give yourself that kind of power, but what does that have to do with letting Doctor Frakwit get a trial?"

"Because society has to be trusted to make decisions on this scale, or we might as well have just stayed in the oceans and never moved on as a species," the Doctor explained (evolution hadn't quite been that simple on Gallifrey, but it was easier to give Kara this kind of example). "The question isn't whether or not Baltar deserves the trial, but whether you as a society can be trusted to deal with him in a legal manner; this trial is more about what it represents for your society as a whole, rather than being about Baltar in himself."

"And Lee getting involved in it?"

"From what I've heard, Major Adama's always had a fairly clear idea of what he wants society to be, even if- if I may be blunt- he's not always been the best about choosing his moment to make a stand for those principles. At the same time, this isn't about his timing; it comes down to the question of whether he's right to make a stand or not, which comes down to whether you believe that he thinks that he's doing the right thing."

"Even for an ass like Baltar?"

"Human beings are flawed creatures, Kara Thrace, but I've learned over my lives that their flaws are what make them exceptional," the Doctor grinned. "I've met the best and worst of men and women in my travels, and while I won't deny that there were a few people who were complete monsters or total saints, what I admire about you is that many of you try to do something about it."

"Even Baltar?"

"He needs a good kick before he can reach that level, but he's not at the stage where he can be classed as irredeemable so easily."

"Right…" Kara nodded, looking thoughtfully at the Time Lord before she nodded in grim resignation. "Can I at least hate the fact that you're making sense?"

"Of course," the Doctor nodded. "I understand why this has to be done; that doesn't mean I don't think Doctor Baltar is an idiot."

Unfortunately, while he was inclined to have faith in Lee Adama's desire to do the right thing, he still had to question some of the rumours he'd been hearing about what that lawyer got up to. Romo Lampkin's implied kleptomaniac tendencies were a comparatively harmless issue in a regular society, but in a world like this fleet, with so many limited resources, they could be far more problematic, even if he had to wonder how much of what Lampkin was doing was because he wanted to win his case…

* * *

"You're the new scientific advisor?"

"And you're the new head of Gaius Baltar's defence," the Doctor replied, nonchalantly sitting back in his chair as he looked at Romo Lampkin. "Now that we've established our titles, can I help you with something?"

"Satisfying my curiosity," Lampkin replied, removing his black glasses as he looked at the Doctor.

"About what?" the Doctor inquired. "If it's regarding our current situation with the Cylons, I'm obviously forbidden from sharing that kind of information with the general population for security reasons…"

"Actually, I'm curious about you."

"About me?"

"How does a man go two years without making a peep in this fleet, and then he sticks his neck out and becomes the scientific advisor to the President and the Admiral of the Fleet?"

"I hardly see how this is relevant," the Doctor countered, moving in his chair to look Lampkin solemnly in the eyes. "As I understand it, you're trying to defend Baltar; what do I have to do with that?"

"Considering that you have one of his two old jobs, you can't deny that people will wonder if you have anything to do with anything…"

"Oh, if you want to know why I didn't reveal my presence earlier, that's simple enough; I thought that Doctor Baltar was coping well enough with the pressure of his dual responsibilities, and I'm not a particular fan of the limelight myself," the Doctor cut Lampkin off with a nonchalant smile. He wasn't sure what kind of resources the average Fleet civilian had to do any real digging into anyone's background this far from their home system, even assuming any of those old networks still existed, but he had already gone over a cover story with Roslin and Adama in case a situation like this ever came up. "After everything on New Caprica, it took a while for me to get settled back into the new dynamic amid all the chaos of us evacuating onto whatever ship could carry us, but once we were all gathered above the algae planet and guaranteed to be in one place for a fixed period of time, I was able to make contact with my old team and then offer the fleet my services."

"I see… and your meetings with my client?"

"Merely wishing to ask him to clarify a couple of points about his motivation for doing anything now that he's in prison," the Doctor clarified. "I can assure you, Romo Lampkin, Gaius Baltar has had no impact on any decision I have made since starting my role as scientific advisor to the fleet, and I have no interest in his opinion on anything he has to say in terms of science or his views on the Cylons."

"You have that much faith in yourself?"

"I have little faith in Baltar," the Doctor corrected.

"Thank you," Lampkin said, nodding politely at the Doctor as he stood up.

"And please return my screwdriver," the Doctor added, holding out a hand as he looked at the lawyer in a nonchalant manner.

"Your-?"

"The silver tube you removed from my desk," the Doctor clarified. "I'll have it back, please."

Looking suspiciously at the Time Lord for a moment, Lampkin finally rolled his eyes and took out the screwdriver, placing it in the Doctor's outstretched hand before he turned around and left the room once again.

Looking after Lampkin, the Doctor was once again reminded about why lawyers always made him uncomfortable; even before he learned about the existence of the Valeyard, he was never comfortable with the idea of people who could ignore the moral implications of their actions so easily. He might support everything he'd told Kara Thrace about the importance of humanity being able to deal with situations such as Baltar's trial on their own, but the evidence against Baltar's actions during the occupation of New Caprica were not easy to ignore, even if he has still unclear about what had happened when the Colonies fell in the first place…

 _Life would be so much easier if all we had to worry about was tracking down that nebula and the next part of the path to Earth. As it is, the trial is raising several questions, those rumours I've been hearing about a small cult building around Baltar make little sense but are certain to make things difficult, and I'm still not comfortable with how long it's been since we've heard anything from the Cylons…_

As much as he hated to admit it, Compassion had made a valid point; there was very little he could actually do about the current situation, considering his own limited resources and the lack of a clear enemy for him to defeat that would solve all their problems. The mere existence of Sharon Agathon proved that the Cylons weren't so simple that he could consider them all to be Daleks or Cybermen and try and find some way to destroy them all with a clear conscience, but the questions of who had created these human-form Cylons and their long-term agenda still troubled him.

Compared to all that, it was almost easier to worry about Baltar's trial; he might now have any part to play in it, but at least he could see for himself that the fleet were coping with a difficult issue.


	18. The Trial of Gaius Baltar

Disclaimer: I own nothing, but I hope you enjoy the results

Feedback: Feel free

A New Angel, a New Fate

"How do we measure loss?" the prosecuting lawyer said, addressing the small courtroom assembled for Baltar's trial on board the _Galactica_ , the Doctor silently watching from the back of the room as the prosecutor paced in front of the assembled panel of judges. "We measure it in the faces of the dead. The faces that haunt our memories and our dreams. How do we measure loss? We measure it in our own faces. The ones we see in the mirror every day. Because it has marked each of us. So how do we measure loss? When the scale of it becomes... too hard to absorb any other way, we use numbers. How many killed. How many maimed. How many missing. And when those numbers become too vast to comprehend, as they did two years ago, we had to turn it around. We began to count the living. Those of us who survived to continue the saga of the human race."

She paused for a moment here to write a number on a whiteboard at the front of the room. "44,035. The sum total of survivors from the Twelve Colonies who settled on New Caprica with President Gaius Baltar as their leader and protector." She turned back to write another number underneath the first. "38,838. Our number the day after we escaped. And the missing number, the one that no one wants to face." She wrote the third number underneath the first two. "5197. 5197 of us killed, left behind, or simply disappeared. 5,197 of all that remains of the human race. Lost."

Numbers on that scale might be comparatively small when the Doctor thought about the deaths he'd witnessed on some of his past travels, but taking the small size of this fleet at the start of its journey into account, every loss became far more personal for these people.

"The citizens of the Twelve Colonies entrusted their fates and the lives to Gaius Baltar," the prosecuting lawyer continued. "What we received was a reign of terror that staggers our minds and breaks our hearts. Instead of governance, we got tyranny. Instead of justice, we got oppression. Instead of a president, we got a murderer. Today, humanity holds him accountable for his crime. Gaius Baltar is not a victim. Gaius Baltar chose to side with the Cylons and to actively seek the deaths of his fellow citizens. For that... he must pay the ultimate price."

Glancing at his companions as they sat on either side of him, the Doctor was pleased to see that Compassion was at least paying attention to the proceedings. Fitz was looking slightly uncertain as he took in what the counsels on both sides were saying, but the former sixties slacker/musician was at least paying attention, even if the Doctor could tell that he'd have a great deal to talk with both of his friends about the next time there was a break in proceedings.

"Your honour," Romo Lampkin said, "the defence would like to change our plea to guilty."

"What?" one of the judges said. "Counselor, are you sure you want to do that?"

"No, but what choice do I have?" Lampkin said, standing up to address the judges. "I mean, it's obvious that my client is guilty."

Looking at the lawyer, the Doctor wondered what kind of agenda this man was trying to pursue; he'd taken on the role of defence lawyer despite freely acknowledging that Baltar was the most hated person in the fleet right now, and the man who would accept that challenge wouldn't quit at the first potential hurdle.

"He's a traitor and a killer," Lampkin continued. "He's no better than the Cylons, and what do we do with them?"

"Throw 'em out the airlock!" somebody yelled from another part of the court.

"That's right!" Lampkin said, with the kind of zeal that made it clear to the Doctor he wasn't going to like the argument that the lawyer was about to present. "Throw 'em out the airlock! This man sold us to our enemy. This man is our enemy. And if there's one thing that's good in war, that is right and just and proper, it's slaughtering our enemy! Getting some _righteous_ payback! What are we waiting for? Let's just kill him now!"

With that yell, Lampkin turned back to address the court rather than the people. "It'd be easier, wouldn't it? Simpler. Justice of the mob. It's what they want, especially her."

Glancing back in the direction that Lampkin had indicated, the Doctor was unsurprised to see that Laura Roslin was the target of that last comment; the president had walked in late to the court for some reason.

Looking at the lawyer, the Doctor began to nod thoughtfully; this man's strategy was unconventional, but he was starting to understand where Lampkin was coming from…

"She's been wanting this for over a year now," Lampkin continued. "Ever since he beat her in a free and fair election of the people. Now she gets a chance to exact her revenge upon a man whose only real crime is bowing to the inevitable! Gaius Baltar saved the lives of the people on New Caprica. Where Laura Roslin would've seen us all dead, victims of a battle we had no hope in winning! I don't know about you, but I'm glad she wasn't the president when the Cylons arrived and said, 'Surrender, or die'. I owe my life to Gaius Baltar and the decision he made that day. And so does Laura Roslin."

As much as he had come to consider Laura Roslin a friend, the Doctor had to give Lampkin credit for so quickly latching on to one of the reasons he had felt the fleet needed to have this trial in the first place. Baltar's actions during his time as president might have been mostly self-serving, but from a certain perspective there hadn't been anything he could do once the Cylons had found New Caprica but go along with their demands, which made this trial as good an opportunity as any for the Fleet to vent their issues.

 _Granted, it shouldn't be too difficult for the prosecution to argue that they would never have been in a position where the president would have_ needed _to surrender to the Cylons if Baltar had lost the election, but it's an interesting way to justify Baltar's actions back then._

In a strange way, for the moment, it was interesting to play his peoples' traditional role when major events were taking place; for the next few days of this trial, the Doctor was just going to sit back and watch unless he was needed elsewhere…

* * *

Sitting awkwardly in the back of the courtroom as he watched the trial unfolding before him, Fitz couldn't believe he'd agreed to this. He understood that the Doctor's technical skills were needed in other parts of the fleet given his role as 'scientific advisor', but the idea that he was meant to keep track of this trial for his friend… he wasn't even sure how the law worked back on Earth, never mind how this fleet was putting things together.

 _OK, so Compassion would probably spend more time over-analysing everything without really getting the motive, but this still isn't exactly my comfort zone…_

"Colonel Tigh?" the prosecutor said, drawing Fitz's attention back to the trial.

"Excuse me," the one-eyed man sitting in the stand replied, clearly just as lost in thought at that moment as Fitz had been, glancing over at Adama as the admiral sat among the judges. "What was the question again?"

"As the leader of the insurgency, did you ever hear of an instance in which Baltar stood up to the Cylons or tried to disrupt their plans?"

"Oh no, never," Tigh said, his tone possessing that slight uncertainty that Fitz recognised from those years he'd spent performing in bars. "He never lifted a frakkin' finger to help us. Ellen did more. At least she was trying to… To help us."

"Yes, Ellen," the prosecutor noted, once the brief murmur among the watchers died off. "Your wife. Another victim of Baltar's Cylon allies."

Looking at the colonel as he nodded bleary agreement, Fitz wasn't sure if he should feel sympathetic for the guy or not. He appreciated that people dealt with grief in different ways, and he didn't have any right to criticise how this guy decided to cope with pain, but after losing his own mother, he appreciated how easy it could be to want to blame other people, even if Sam had helped him recognise that the Doctor had only done that because there'd been no other choice.

"Colonel?" Lampkin cut in, after a few moments of inaudible conversation between him and Major Adama, walking up to a position in front of the stand before he continued his questioning. "You dislike Gaius Baltar because you consider him to be a traitor. Is that correct?"

"And a coward, and a mass murderer," Tigh affirmed.

"The suicide bombing of the police graduation; Gaius Baltar was the intended target, was he not?"

"And if he'd had the guts to show up that day like he was supposed to, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation right now," Tigh affirmed in a grim yet casual tone.

Fitz tried to hide the urge to show his reaction at that revelation; he appreciated that these people were in a difficult situation, but the idea that they'd been carrying out suicide bombings…

"So you ordered the killing of… what was it; thirty-three other men and women, just for the chance to kill Gaius Baltar?"

"They were all traitors," Tigh said coldly. "Anyone who put on that uniform. But yes, he was the target."

"What happened to your wife?" Lampkin asked after he wandered to a point in front of Tigh's seat.

"Exception," the prosecution cut in. "Relevance?"

"The door was opened on direct, your honors."

"I fail to see the point of this," Adama put in from the judge's desk.

"He's right, Admiral," another judge said. "If it was brought up during direct examination, than it can be pursued in the cross. Overruled; continue."

"What happened to your wife, Colonel?" Lampkin asked.

"You frakkin' son of a bitch-!"

"Isn't it true that she collaborated openly with the Cylons?" Lampkin put in nonchalantly. "That she actually worked for them?"

"She was faking it," Tigh said grimly. "Making them think that she was working for them."

"I see, yeah," Lampkin nodded. "And Baltar, he wasn't faking it, no?"

"That's right," Tigh said firmly.

"And you blame him for her death," the lawyer continued. "Have you been drinking today, colonel?"

"I had a drink," Tigh corrected, his words fumbling slightly."I haven't been drinking."

"You used to like to drink with Ellen, I imagine," Lampkin continued.

"You hear that?" Tigh looked up. "They're playing music in here, now?"

"Gaius Baltar didn't order the death of your wife, Colonel, that was somebody else," Lampkin continued, with a tone that put Fitz in mind of those particularly arrogant gits he'd met with the Doctor who thought they knew best about everything. "Who was it, colonel? Who killed Ellen? Come on, colonel, we're waiting. Tell us. Who was it? Who killed Ellen?"

"I did," Tigh said at last, his jaw trembling as he looked over at Adama as though seeking forgiveness. "I did. I did. She was giving information to the Cylons. A lot of good men died. She was my wife; it was my responsibility."

Even if he was hearing something terrible, Fitz couldn't imagine how this man had coped with that kind of secret; even understanding how everyone had reached a point where Colonel Tigh had felt like he had to make that kind of choice didn't make it easier to put himself in the man's shoes, even with Fitz's own grim experience of having to let the Doctor kill his mother.

"She did it for me," Tigh continued. "That's what she said. To save me from going back to prison so they could tear more pieces off me. So I killed her. All because of that thing over there. All because Gaius frakkin' Baltar didn't have the guts to stand up to the Cylons. Because he handed our fates over to the Cylons, I had to kill my Ellen."

"So Gaius Baltar made you kill your wife," Lampkin concluded. "That's why you hate him. And that's why you'd say anything to see him die."

"You're Godsdamned right I would," Tigh practically growled. "I would do anything... say anything... to see that man die a painful death."

Even a legal amateur like Fitz could see what Lampkin had just done; he'd basically invalidated any testimony that Tigh might produce by confirming that the colonel would be willing to commit perjury to ensure that the trial went against Baltar.

This was far and away one of the most morally complicated situations Fitz had encountered in the TARDIS; on the one hand, he didn't like the idea of people freely lying in court, but on the other hand, he hadn't heard much about Baltar to suggest that the guy was even _worth_ saving (even if he'd never say that to the Doctor).

* * *

"He _resigned_?" Fitz stared at the Doctor incredulously as his friend revealed the latest news from the fleet's leadership. "The son of the military commander of the last remnants of humanity _quit_ the military at a time like this?"

"Why is it that part's more interesting to you then developments in the trial itself?" Compassion glanced at Fitz curiously.

"It's human nature to wonder about the lives of other individuals over the less immediate if larger social issues, Compassion," the Doctor shrugged. "Granted, I never understood the human fascination with things such as reality TV when there are weightier concerns, but I suppose the complexities of things with Lee's current role in the trial is more interesting than what they're doing about the tylium ship's energy signature."

"You could sort it, right?"

"Oh, fixing an energy leak like that should be simple enough once I have a chance to look over the schematics," the Doctor said dismissively before his expression became more solemn. "But that doesn't change the fact that this fleet's leadership is in trouble."

"In what way?" Compassion asked. "Lee Adama resigning I can understand being an issue, but that's-"

"Not the only problem," the Doctor put in, his tone still solemn. "Laura Roslin came to me a week or so ago to ask me if I could do anything about her cancer."

"Cancer?" Fitz repeated. "I thought she was over that?"

"If she ever was, it's coming back," the Doctor said grimly. "I had a fully-stocked infirmary in the old girl, of course, but considering what you are…"

"I might not have anything that sophisticated."

"Weren't you in there to analyse that Cylon corpse shortly after we got here?"

"Dissecting a dead body is a lot simpler than treating a living person of a disease like this," the Doctor clarified for Fitz, before he sighed and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. "And the stress of everything else can't be good for her; I hear today's trial had to discuss an experience when she was taken away to face execution?"

"Yeah," Fitz noted grimly. "Seriously, how can anyone _want_ to defend Baltar?"

"Firstly, it's the rule of law, Fitz; no matter how reprehensible their crimes, everyone is entitled to their day in court," the Doctor noted. "And secondly, even if I agree that Baltar's actions as president were a disgrace to every oath he was meant to have taken to serve the people, I also have to acknowledge that he would have found it hard to do anything else in his position once the Cylons arrived. With the Cylons active on New Caprica in the numbers we've heard, it wouldn't have been hard for them to just kill Baltar and appoint someone else as President if he had dared to defy them on that scale; it could be argued that he stayed where he was because he had some kind of strange dynamic with them that meant he could encourage some kind of leniency where others couldn't."

"You're honestly defending him?"

"I understand how he came to that conclusion; it doesn't mean that I completely approve of it," the Doctor corrected Compassion. "But… when I get down to it, no matter my personal feelings, there have to be limits on what I will and won't do to interfere with a society that's making its own mistakes. Whether Doctor Baltar is declared guilty or innocent, it will be because of the court's own choices; we can't say anything for certain about events on New Caprica, so we can't interfere."

"Particularly not when they don't need our testimony for anything," Fitz added.

"I trust that doesn't imply you'd be willing to perjure yourself if such a situation did arise?" the Doctor looked sharply at Fitz. "Beyond hiding anything you might say regarding where we came from, naturally."

"No," Fitz assured his friend immediately, before letting out another grim sigh. "I don't suppose you'll be able to sit in on that trial yourself tomorrow?"

"I need to make sure everything with the tylium ship is fixed first," the Doctor said apologetically. "Besides, Lieutenant Thrace is still feeling frustrated at what Lee's been doing for the last couple of days; I'd prefer to keep an eye on her to make sure the Guardians don't try anything else…"


End file.
